Oh, that sound? I'm in the hot tub, reading a novel.

Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.

Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.

I suspected that there were things he knew that I had been waiting all my life to learn.

In many ways, being honest about 'Huckleberry Finn' goes right to the heart of whether we can be honest about our heritage and our identity as Americans.

Even if my marriage is falling apart and my children are unhappy, there is still a part of me that says, 'God, this is fascinating!'

Take naps. Often new ideas come together when you are half asleep, but you have to train yourself to remember them.

Candy is my fuel. Ice cream, too.

But what truly horsey girls discover in the end is that boyfriends, husbands, children, and careers are the substitute-for horses

In every society, the artists will be the ones who set themselves up as contrary to whatever the society expects.

I'm a natural novelist. I'm interested in the person and the group, and how they mesh. And one of the ways I don't want them to mesh is for the person to be subsumed into the group.

Books were a dependable pleasure. I read more then than I ever was able to read again until now when I am too old to work much and am mostly alone.

It takes great courage to open one's heart and mind to the tremendous injustice and suffering in our world.

The secret of true prosperity is finding our security through our connection with the divine, with the spiritual world.

(On his addiction to opiods): I'll die young, but it's like kissing God.

Educators remind us that what counts in a classroom is not what the teacher teaches; it’s what the learner learns.

Liquor is not a necessity. It is a means of momentarily sidestepping necessity.

Dance and Provencal song and sunburnt mirth! On for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene! With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth.

Committing to happiness increases your chances for success.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

If you listen too much to doubts you're totally lost.