Literature is not made of ideas and it's not made of concepts, of psychological analysis. It's made of words.

Every single pleasure I can imagine or have experienced is more delightful, more of a pleasure, if you take it in small sips, if you take your time. Reading is not an exception.

Fundamentalist s live life with an exclamation point. I prefer to live my life with a question mark.

Writing a poem is like having an affair, a one-night stand; a short story is a romance, a relationship; a novel is a marriage-one has to be cunning, devise compromises, and make sacrifices.

Words create conceptions and self-conceptions and ultimately nations. They can start and stop wars. They can would and heal. Choosing words carefully is a moral responsibility.

A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops.

All of my novels are democracies.

The only way to keep a dream, any dream at all, to keep a dream perfect and rosy and intact and unsullied is never to live it out.

The opposite of compromise is not integrity. The opposite of compromise is not idealism. The opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death.

I wrote The Same Sea not as a political allegory about Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote it about something much more gutsy and immediate. I wrote it as a piece of chamber music.

Now, Israel is a fulfillment, and as a fulfillment, it is flawed. The fact that it is flawed is not so much a testimony about the failures of Israel. No, it is a testimony about the nature of dreams.

Woo means the ability to entice someone or something to get what you want. My first solo album was called: All the Woo of the Universe, which was titled by George Clinton.

I got put on jury duty, which is where I learned how to write.

True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found.

But what are years, what are months!" he would exclaim. "Why count the days, when even one day is enough for man to know all happiness.

People who assume my books are only about quilts obviously haven't read them! I've always known that my books are about quilters - in other words, people - rather than quilts or quilting.

I loved New Jersey. I thought it was the greatest place in the world because on Halloween kids could start trick or treating right after school. Isn't that great?

From where I sit now, I like the looks of tomorrow.

We must take situations as they are. We must only change our mental attitudes towards them.

Apart from a very close circle of friends, few people know my true self, and it's normal, I never put it into my music.

I also feel that if you were evil, then next time around you would be very good.