In my perfect world, we would establish perhaps four national zoos of unimpeachable quality and close the rest of them.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.

I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.

Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space.

You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.

One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

There is a certain calling in your life from the heart of God

It's impossible to make a record when you're ill because it affects how you listen to things. You can't make decisions. It all sounds terrible.

To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist. And there is no decent or charted way of making a living at it. It is something you are, and not something you do.

Desperate men do desperate things when you take hope away. And that's where the Palestinians are today.

The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain. When such pleasure is present, so long as it is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or of mind or of both together.

I think any celebrity that adopts a child from a third world country is a fool.

I just want to do the best possible job with everything that I do. But I'm far more concerned with being a good father as opposed to being a good actor because that's what's really going to matter.

House of Style' changed my life. I literally had no experience in front of a TV camera before, and there I was taking over for Rebecca Romijn. My exposure heightened instantly.

In the real world, you can make your own miracles.