Once your past no longer has the power to define you, your future is, quite literally, yours for the taking. Every single beautiful thing you could possibly want or imagine will be yours.

The goal was never dependent on the route that took me there. It was always dependent on the heart that got me through whatever route opened itself up to my efforts.

Sometimes to be a good parent... You have to laugh when you want to be angry. You have to be angry when you want to laugh. And that is why good parenting is tough.

If bullies actually believe that somebody loves them and believes in them, they will love themselves, they will become better people, and many will even become saviors to the bullied.

A lot of people don't like me. I take that as evidence that I have done something beautifully different or something extraordinary.

People who love themselves, don’t hurt other people. The more we hate ourselves, the more we want others to suffer.

Children are gifts. They are not ours for the breaking. They are ours for the making.

Saturday mornings, I’ve learned, are a great opportunity for kids to sneak into your bed, fall back asleep, and kick you in the face.

It’s time we stand up and demand more of the fathers of this world. It’s time we stop buying into their rationalizations and their sorry explanations. It’s time we give our kids a fighting chance.

Parenting is the greatest pay it forward system on earth. We don't owe our parents anything. We owe our children everything. The same was true for our parents. The same will be true for our children.

Fishing is much less about the fishing, and much more about the time alone with your kid, away from the hustle and bustle of the everyday.

There is no right or wrong way to write a novel. Each journey is different for every individual work and for every writer. The first error is never to begin

A call to embrace democracy is the worst insult to a society that is still alien to civilisation. It is like being asked to dance to the tune of mob justice.

You know, your ears record. You might can sing a song once you hear it.

In youth the human body drew me and was the object of my secret and natural dreams. But body after body has taken away from me that sensual phosphorescence which my youth delighted in.

How great, my friends, is the virtue of living upon a little!

The infinitely competent can be uncreative.

If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God.

According to one critic, my works looked like scraped billboards. I went to look at the billboards and decided that more billboards should be scraped.

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be, but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.

We believe what we want to believe, what we like to believe, what suits our prejudices and fuels our passions.