It is a world of words that creates a world of things.

(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.

The writers who have the deepest influence on one are those one reads in ones more impressionable, early life, and often it is the more youthful works of those writers that leave the deepest imprint.

When all else fails, philosophize.

We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.

I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering.

All creatures come into the world bringing with them the memory of justice.

But he cannot see a connection between the end of yearning and the end of poetry. Is that what growing up amounts to: growing out of yearning, of passion, of all intensities of the soul?

I don't think we are ready to die, any of us, not without being escorted.

A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.

Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?

The morning sun in New Orleans felt like it was trying to make a point, convincing the old world to believe something new.

Talent is nothing without persistence.

The novelist must be his own most harsh critic and also his own most loving admirer and about both he must say nothing.

Once again, as a flawed evaluator of dictators and failed strategist who has permitted Russia back in as a major player in the Middle East, is Hillary Clinton guilty or not guilty?

I don't want...to run away by myself... because no matter what...I'd rather be together with everyone.

I love to see people laugh and I love it more if I can make them laugh.

The laptop brings back a more seamless kind of learning.

Tonight you will eat fish. Tomorrow, you may die.

There is no hierarchy of elder knowledge in my social region of things. There are only people learning and sharing in a very complex environment.

Two bones fell down my chimney and into the bedroom this morning. Hysterical thing to happen to a thriller writer. Murderous ravens perhaps?