It is less the business of the novelist to tell us what happened than to show how it happened.

Short stories can be rather stark and bare unless you put in the right details. Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better.

If you're experiencing no anxiety or discomfort, the risk you're taking probably isn't worthy of you. The only risks that aren't a little scary are the ones you've outgrown.

Most people confuse wishing and wanting with pursuing. You must place your trust in action.

Optimism inspires, energizes, and brings out our best. It points the mind toward possibilities and helps us think creatively past problems.

Well, youth is the period of assumed personalities and disguises. It is the time of the sincerely insincere.

No sense being pessimistic. Wouldn't work anyway.

Too much attention on problems kills our faith in possibilities.

The profoundly humorous writers are humorous because they are responsive to the hopeless, uncouth, concatenations of life.

If you must doubt something, doubt your limits.

Your ethical muscle grows stronger every time you choose right over wrong.

Well, I guess I needed this tough first round to really put me into that tournament, to really erase what happened at Indian Wells, which is now the case, you know.

I can't think of anything better to do with a life than to wear it out in efforts to be useful to the world.

I mean gifts and trips and clothing and all sorts of things, and now he [Tim Kaine] is running for vice president. I don't get what's going on here. He was not a good choice for her.

Try this: say the words "global, global, global" aloud several times, as fast as you can. You'll find yourself sounding like a turkey ("gobble, gobble, gobble").

If you can see yourself more than just a victim, aha, now you've got the place to move into that is much more vital and creative and is resourceful than being a victim.

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's a day you've had everything to do and you've done it.

Every mind needs friendly contact with other minds, for food of expansion and growth.

The citric acid in lemon juice makes it perfect for bleaching, disinfecting and cutting through grease. And olive oil is a great alternative to furniture polish.

I can't concentrate in flats.