My greatest pleasure is to invent. My continual mad ambition is to make something true and beautiful that never existed in the world before.

To know you will be lonely is not the same as being lonely.

People do not love those whose eyes show that they are somewhere else

The declared meaning of a spoken sentence is only its overcoat, and the real meaning lies underneath its scarves and buttons.

I have never begun a novel which wasn't going to stretch me further than I had ever stretched before.

I'm interested in where we are, where we're going, where we've come from.

Swimming always cleans your soul

It's like standing on the edge of a cliff. This is especially true of the first draft. Every day you're making up the earth you're going to stand on.

Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.

Nostalgia is something we think of as fuzzy. But it's pain. Pain concerning the past.

I'm always the one with the activist friends. I've been an activist very little.

Wise people problems, becomes everyone's solution. Foolish people solutions becomes everyone's problem.

In childbirth grief begins.

We are not revived because we sing; we sing because we are revived.

Almost is almost a way of life for almost everybody

I don't need to know where the green is. Where is the golf course?

This is crazy," I told Patch in an undertone. "I'm crazy." He was on the brink of smiling again. "About you.

The point is, you see," said Ford, "that there is no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later.

In the Islamic government all people have complete freedom to have any kind of opinion.

You will find that you survive humiliation. And that's an experience of incalculable value.

Above all, have a good time. If you aren’t enjoying writing it, you can hardly expect someone else to enjoy reading it.