Now, if, as I think, writing should be, it's a kind of risky trade.

The point is not to pay back kindness but to pass it on.

Each of us will have to make the choices that allow us to be the largest versions of ourselves.

It's like my whole world is coming undone, but when I write, my pencil is a needle and thread, and I'm stitching the scraps back together.

A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart.

I write to find out what I am thinking. I write to find out who I am. I write to understand things.

A book does not discriminate against any reader. All are welcome at the table of literature.

Don't plan it all. Let life surprise you a little.

Everyone needs a strong sense of self. It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life.

I admit that for me love goes deeper than the struggle, or maybe what I mean is, love is the deeper struggle.

Every writer can tell you that a book is only truly alive when it finds passionate readers who bring it alive in their imaginations.

Love is the highest form of energy. It cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transmuted.

The question is precisely to know whether the past has ceased to exist, or ceased to be useful...

Used a replica gun to steal a replica sportscar and experienced a replica of remorse

The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity but in being uninteresting.

Achieve success in any area of life by identifying the optimum strategies and repeating them until they become habits.

He knew he had no right to touch her, crave her like air, but he did both. And when he put his mouth on hers, he recognized the taste of her, like she'd been made just for him.

Nothing the European mind ever devised was meant to do anything but to facilitate the European's control over the world.

The literacy level at Mississippi prisons? Fifth grade. Can't read, what are you going to do? If you've got a conviction rap, what are you going to do? It's a real crisis.

Like I'm going to pass up an opportunity to smack your cousin.

I wanted to keep things as normal as possible for the trainees, so I led my usual morning class. I called it Magic Problem-Solving 101. The trainees called it Whatever Works.