One function of the imagination in autobiographical writing is to allow the writer to try out different versions of the self.

To read well is to prepare oneself to live wisely, kindly and wittily.

Listen into the silences where the best words begin.

A story is an invitation, and a challenge, and a choice.

People do not wander around and then find themselves at the top of Mount Everest.

It is fortune not wisdom that rules man's life.

Great men are rarely isolated mountain peaks they are the summits of ranges.

I'm an introvert. I get my energy by spending time alone. I need that hour or two to myself every day.

I'm not a U.S. citizen. I mean, I'm an earth-izen. Borderline policies are crap to me.

Grieve not because thou understand-not life's mystery; behind the veil is concealed many a delight.

Nothing's perfect along the way [in life], and you ride the ups and downs. It's how you come out of those and continue on that I guess really matters.

The unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen, Lives not to please himself, but other men; Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood, Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.

Wickedness may prosper for awhile, but in the long run, he that sets all the knaves at work will pay them.

In the end, one or the other will triumph - a funeral dirge will be sung over the Soviet republic or over world capitalism.