Literature may open a third eye in the middle of the reader's forehead.

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.

As we work to reweave the strands of connection, we can be supported by the wisdom and lovingkindness of others.

I think that, especially as the kids are growing up, they have so much stuff going on in their own lives, they don't really know how much they're looking at their mom as the big problem

For all of us, we put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's in our boat. And when those storms come and those waves (of life) come, He's in the boat with us.

Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist?

My wife has a keen sense of humor. The more I humor her, the better.

I cannot look at myself in the mirror; everything I have believed in I have had to reject. This environment only makes sense through the prism of trends.

If you don't write good music, people aren't going to listen to anything you say.

I can do a reddish-brown or brown lip, but not a bright red. I just don't look good in it. Over the years you learn certain things that don't look good on you, and that's one of them for me.

I do think it's a very good way to describe what a great actor does. You're both acknowledging the authority of the director and the necessity of the actor to push back and find their own voice.

When we run from God, we run away from everything that makes us alive and free. We run away from our own happiness. We leave our place where we belong—close to his heart.