In my spare time, I paint, garden, hike and enjoy massages for my weary writer's back.

I love Topsail Island, which my grandparents helped settle in 1950, despite the racial tensions. I wanted to immortalize my deep connection to this special island forever.

My pets are very supportive, as they curl up in their beds underneath my desk.

The classical music is soothing and stimulating, good for thinking.

When I get stuck, I take a long walk outside or go to a movie. I get out of my own way so I can hear the quiet voices that hold all of the answers that connect the dots.

You have to get angry in the face of bad situations. It's the most effective way to escape the bridles of despair.

If let your inner beauty outshine your outer beauty, your future self would surely thank you for it.

You simply don't get to be wise, mature, etc., unless you've been a raving cannibal for thirty years or so.

I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time.

It seems that these phenomenal feats that race car drivers are performing are instinctive. They [require] very little mental workload.

The shame that arises from praise which we do not deserve often makes us do things we should otherwise never have attempted.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

It's less about what you do and more about who you are doing it with.

If you want to live a memorable life, you have to be the kind of person who remembers to remember.

I don't sit under the tattoo gun unless I'm sold on it completely and it will define me as a person.