It's really hard to get a book published, even a good book, but the better the book is the better chance it has of eventually catching someone's attention.

How much sweeter life would be if it all happened in reverse, if, after decades of disappointments, you finally arrived at an age when you had conceded nothing, when everything was possible.

I first started writing fiction in college because I was attracted to beautiful sentences. I loved to read them. I wanted to write them.

Fear is ... a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do.

Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next?

But the past is long, and the future is short.

It requires a certain kind of bravery, I suppose, to choose the status quo. There's a certain boldness to inaction.

We were a different kind of Christian, the quiet, reasonable kind, a breed embarrassed by the mention of miracles.

I can write all the way through the morning, when my mind is clear, and there are no distractions.

To some degree we all live with uncertainty. We have no control over the future. Yet we carry on, we persevere, because, I guess, it's the way we're made.

My goal was just to tell the unlikely story in a way that would feel as convincing as possible.

Our thoughts create our world.

I don't need every answer. Just the right answer.

I feel like I needed a balance. I don't want to forget about my personal life and spending time with myself.

Capitalism has survived communism. Now, it eats away at itself.

Only when you’re willing to take 100 percent responsibility for making the relationship work will it work. Otherwise, a relationship left to chance will always be vulnerable to disaster.

As you go into the light, you will gain a more profound happiness. That happiness will free you from the desire-aversion cycle.

I wanted to grow in terms of making pictures, not adapting to new software and technology. But that's the game now.

Very few people ever meet celebrities. All we really know is what we read about them and the most memorable lines are jokes. That's how we tend to define what we think of a public figure.

This requires a level of delusion/egomania usually reserved for popes and drag queens