If you don't have a unique voice, then you're not really a writer.

The beginning is the word and the end is silence. And in between are all the stories.

As I watch, the sky fills with clouds of snow feathers from every kind of bird there ever was and even some that only exist in the imagination, like the bluebirds that fly over the rainbow.

If they would all sleep all the time she wouldn't mind being their mother.

If people believed in eternal damnation they might not be seizing the day quite so much.

Men had no purpose on earth whereas women were gods walking unrecognized among them.

The past is what you take with you.

Ethics are not necessarily to do with being law-abiding. I am very interested in the moral path, doing the right thing.

Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness, a conundrum that she couldn’t even begin to solve.

In the end, it is my belief, words are the only things that can construct a world that makes sense.

I spent four years doing a doctorate in postmodern American literature. I can recognize it when I see it.

Q: How can I help myself?A: By remembering the proverb: ‘The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service’, from Saadi.

Fame is only good for one thing - they will cash your check in a small town.

I feel like I still am struggling in a lot of different ways. I still have to fight for certain things. Certain jobs. At least I'm working and I'm thankful for that.

Friends made fast seldom remain fast.

I was excited about working with Richard Gere. Oh, and Joan Allen! Oh, my God, she is such a force of nature, it's mind boggling.

The nativism behind the push to repeal or amend the Fourteenth is ugly and obvious.

Sounds of life and movement, people getting ready and people giving up, the sound of hope and the sound of hanging on, and behind them all, the quiet, deadly ticking of a thousand hungry clocks.

There weren't too many books by women that were taught in school, so I read those on my own, and the books I read were as accessible as the ones we were reading in school.

Colors are the deeds/ and sufferings of light.

I believe that the politics of intervention and the Kosovo war prompted a fresh resumption of the arms race worldwide.