I would never have been a novelist without working as a psychologist...it was a great education in human nature.

Life is like a prism. What you see depends on how you turn the glass.

All of us are like locks. No matter how strong the bolt, there’s always a key out there that opens it.

The science of psychotherapy is knowing what to say, the art is knowing when to say it. (36)

The characters emerge from my rather twisted mind. That's another enjoyable part of the job making stuff up.

It didn't feel difficult at the time because I was so charged up about both books. Afterward, however, I was pretty tired. In a good way, like after a great workout.

To trust someone is to take the greatest risk of all. (180)

Therapist’s dilemma: those who need help the most, run the farthest from it.

Optimism is denial for chumps with no life experience". "What's pessimism?" I said. "Religion without God.

Just because others have it worse doesn’t mean you have to suffer in silence.

Each novel is harder than its predecessor because I must work harder at not repeating myself. However, I enjoy the challenge. This is the greatest job in the world.

I mean, if you're asking a fellow to come out of a room so that you can dismember him with a carving knife, it's absurd to tack a 'sir' on to every sentence. The two things don't go together.

Light always overcomes darkness.

The telling and hearing of stories is a bonding ritual that breaks through illusions of separateness and activates a deep sense of our collective interdependence.

There was no going back to the way things were, because all you ever got was the way things are.

Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work.

Beer does not taste like itself unless it is chasing a dram of neat whisky down the gullet - preferably two drams

One of the uncovenanted benefits of living for a long time is that, having so many more dead than living friends, death can appear as a step backwards into the joyous past.

The mass-market paperback, for one, is too expensive.

Somehow I was invited to visit with Audrey Hepburn. I had this afternoon with her, and she gave me a couple things. She was so gracious and everything you would think that she would be.

In finance everything that is agreeable is unsound and everything that is sound is disagreeable.