My desire is to be anonymous, isolated, quiet, peaceful, and concentrated.

A girl is different. They want things. They need things on a regular schedule. Why, a girl's got purposes you and me can't even imagine. They got ideas in their heads you and me can't even suppose.

He wanted to think of words that would make some difference but there were none in any language he knew that were sufficient to the moment or that would change a single thing.

You have to believe in yourself despite the evidence.

It seems to me nothing man has done or built on this land is an improvement over what was here before.

I began writing seriously in my mid-20s and didnt publish my first book until I was 41.

Fame isn't healthy for a writer.

Honey, Maggie Jones said. Victoria. Listen to me. You're here now. This is where you are.

This country's crazy in terms of fame and what people think it means. They expect a writer to be something between a Hollywood starlet and the village idiot.

Here was this man Tom Guthrie in Holt standing at the back window in the kitchen of his house smoking cigarettes and looking out over the back lot where the sun was just coming up.

This boy needs a dog.What makes you say that?He needs someone or something to play with besides his phone and an old man and an old woman doddering around.

No man can ever admire a woman the way she admires herself.

Everyday something unexpected happened. Everyday was exciting. Everyday was a misadventure.

No one has it who isn't capable of genuinely liking others at least at the actual moment of meeting and speaking. Charm is always genuine it may be superficial but it isn't fake.

I like John McCain, or he seems like a cool guy in a lot of ways. I don't agree with a lot of his policies, but he still seems like a cool guy.

You listen to your favorite song just until you're almost getting sick of it, and then it's so fun to rediscover it after a couple of months.

Be what you wish your children to be. Parents have perpetuated by precept and example their own stamp of character to their posterity.

If you were a crayon, what color would you most like to make out with?

Like it or not, war is not always the answer. The better part of wisdom is to stay out.

But actors with political views are a dime a dozen.