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

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.

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.

You can’t control what other people think about your art. Think about the part of yourself that you can control, which is your ability to be kind and loving and creative.

With every step we take we have a choice to make. Our choices determine our actions. Our actions determine who we are.

In the beginning the Poets and Philosophers taught the world to see. Then after that any form of education was no longer free.

No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.

Forgive and call back the energy wasted on past events.

President Bush says now he is sticking to his plan for handing over power to the Iraqis on June 30. It's also part of his plan to hand over power to John Kerry on January 20.

He [Andrew Carnegie] wanted people to be able to lift themselves, to educate themselves, to train themselves. And there was no better way to do that than with libraries.

A coward can be a hero, but a hero cannot be a coward.

You can only learn when you teach.

Running alone is the toughest. You get to the point where you have to keep pushing yourself.