Keeping people safe is a story we tell ourselves.

Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.

Part of it is living in Tennessee. I'm so out of the loop. And as a person, I'm out of the loop. I'm oblivious by nature.

Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.

No matter how much we love a book, the experience of reading it isn't complete until we can give it to someone who will love it as much as we do

Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.

You are always someones favorite unfolding story

Just because things hadn't gone the way I had planned didn't necessarily mean they had gone wrong.

I can write for any magazine now, in any voice. I can do it in two hours, I could do it in my sleep, it's like writing a grocery list.

There can be something cruel about people who have had good fortune. They equate it with personal goodness.

Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined.

Outer beauty you see with your eyes, but inner beauty you only see with your heart.

I hadn't yet come to terms with the man my father was, or the lives he'd destroyed. But I accepted that he was part of me, and that he'd loved me once.

You used to scream so well when you were scared, back when I lived under your bed.

Because God took one look at Adam and said, 'Wow. This guy's going to need all the help he can get.' And here we are.

The same wolfish greed beats in your heart: to have what you will, and kill for it.

We've looked for the constitution to be a national pact, and the perception now is that it's not.

The departure from the world is regarded not as a fault, but as the first step into that noble path at the remotest turn of which illumination is to be won.

All things entail rising and falling timing. You must be able to discern this.

Our tradition is that of the first man who sneaked away to the creek when the tribe did not really need fish.

How can you have any regret when everything worked out fine? But why I think it worked out fine is due to the lessons I learned along the way. And one of those involves listening to experts.