I've written 17 novels, and I've found out that fiction can't keep up with real life.

In life, finding a voice is speaking and living the truth. Each of you is an original. Each of you has a distinctive voice. When you find it, your story will be told. You will be heard.

One thing you really have to watch as a writer is getting on a soapbox or pulpit about anything. You don't want to alienate readers.

You live your life today, Not tommorow, and certainly not yesterday.

Prisons are fascinating places, especially when the inmates are educated white-collar types.

Jesus preached more and taught more about helping the poor and the sick and the hungry than he did about heaven and hell. Shouldn't that tell us something?

When witnesses concoct lies, they often miss the obvious.

If you're gonna be stupid you gotta be tough.

When you work at street level you never know who's going to walk through your door.

Shame was an emotion he had abandoned years earlier. Addicts know no shame. You disgrace yourself so many times you become immune to it.

judge not that ye be not judged

I am happy to donate funds to various organizations that help people in need.

When I was a kid, we never heard of smog, ozone depletion, acid rain, green house gasses.

...people liking you or not liking you is an accident and is to do with them and not you. That goes for love too, only more so.

With all its variety and liveliness, color acts in the work of art as blood does as it circulates through our bodies. Color is what keeps the painting alive and moving.

When I am with composers, I say I am a conductor. When I am with conductors, I say I am a composer.

People who hate often do so with great conviction. What we need are more people who love with conviction.

That's not the federal law. What you're confusing is law with the opinion of a justice, what one lone federal judge says is not law.

I love being objected to. It worries me, but I love being objected to.

On prohibiting anybody from learning anything: Why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.