People always seemed to know half of history, and to get it confused with the other half.

In my day, we didn't have self-esteem, we had self-respect, and no more of it than we had earned.

You've either got to find a way to make your continuing characters interesting without making them maudlin or overwrought, or you've got to put more emphasis on the suspects.

Everybody is a True Believer. Everybody has a little nugget they're convinced of that is the opposite of the nugget on the other side. And they're convinced it's fact.

Knowledge pursued for its own sake - that's the definition of education, as opposed to training.

I was the executive editor on a little magazine called Greek Accent, whose only claim to fame is that its art director went on to be the art director of Discover for many years.

Nobody in real life ever takes me seriously.

I don't make my own schedule - it's constructed around my sons' school schedules.

Listen to advice. You don't know how many writer's conferences I've taught at where at least half the audience fights all the conventions of the field.

I've been a teacher at the college level, in composition mostly, and I've been an editor on magazines.

If you don't burn the candle at both ends, what's the candle got two ends for?

Science is about the desperate effort to catch up with the 13.7 billion year-old facts (give or take an eon or two).

The State did not own men so entirely, even when it could send them to the stake, as it sometimes does now where it can send them to the elementary school.

So the American government lied to the Native Americans for many, many years, and then President Clinton lied about a relationship, and everyone was surprised! A little naïve, I feel!

Worry leads to worry.

Humility fears not humiliation.

The secret to life is trusting yourself and loving who you are, just the way you are.

The only thing in my bag that works is the bug spray.

I don't know much about Americanism, but it's a damn good word with which to carry an election.