In my early twenties, that's when I really began to write. Before that, I was too busy working, keeping myself going.

When you read to a child, when you put a book in a child's hands, you are bringing that child news of the infinitely varied nature of life. You are an awakener.

A good novel begins with a small question and ends with a bigger one.

The minute you become conscious that you are doing good, that's the minute you have to stop because from then on it's wrong.

To be human is to be in a story.

Families hold each other in an iron grip of definition. One must break the grip, somehow.

The language of labels is like paper money, issued irresponsibly, with nothing of intrinsic value behind it, that is, with no effort of the intelligence to see, to really apprehend.

Literature is the province of imagination, and stories, in whatever guise, are meditations on life.

People steal into one's consciousness and occupy what seems, in retrospect, to have been their place all along.

I was the goldfish that leapt out of the bowl.

Life is all getting used to what you're not used to.

Before you get a bad attitude by drawing recurring conclusions to new situation based on past experiences, be sure to look for the possibilities.

We must repent of our prayerlessness. We must make prayer our priority. Even our churches today have gotten away from prayer meetings.

When someone is suffering, there is a deep, visceral reaction in the core of our being, a flood of empathy and a frightfully desperate compulsion to give aid.

Because it strikes me there is something greater than judgement. I think it is called mercy.

I am fevered with the sunset I am fretful with the bay For the wander-thirst is on me And my soul is in Cathay.

You count on it, you rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then, just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.

For a house to be successful, the objects in it must communicate with one another, respond to and balance one another

Something horrible happens and I try to make it funny. It's really a tortured life. You go to a salsa bar, at your local burrito stand, and you know, you think "how can you make a joke about this?"

Give me something to dance about and I'll dance it.

I think it would be a boring game if everybody was the same, just like it would be boring if you guys asked the same dumb questions.