Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.

A desert is a place without expectation.

The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.

A truly living human being cannot remain neutral.

The caged eagle become a metaphor for all forms of isolation, the ultimate in imprisonment. A zoo is prison.

Peace. The upland serenity of high altitude, the openness of grassland without indigenous bush or trees; the greening, yellowing or silver-browning that prevailed, according to season.

Writing is making sense of life.

Perhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter.

I have failed at many things, but I have never been afraid.

Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area.

Time is change; we measure its passage by how much things alter.

How on earth did I get here, and where the hell are my pants?

I'm a huge fan of Steve Martin. He's hilarious, but he has this depth to him and this way of dealing with the difficult things in life with a sense of humor that I think has helped me as an actress.

[H]istorians have powerful imaginations, which are essential and dangerous.

We're in the middle of the transformation of a society that has handled its politics through repression to a society that will handle its politics through democratic institutions.

With the situation in Iraq growing ever more dangerous, the 34-member Coalition of The Willing are, one by one, dropping out to join the other coalition known as Most of The Rest of The World.

The puritan through life's sweet garden goes to pluck the thorn and cast away the rose.

I still believe in this country, that it can fulfill the destiny Blake and Whitman envisioned. I still believe in American poetry.

Other seasons come abruptly but ask so little when they do. Winter is the only one that has to be relearned.

I have supped full with horrors.

We make trifles of terrors, Ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, When we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.