People never remeber happiness with the care that they lavish on preserving every detail of their suffering.

No pain is too small if it hurts, but any pain is too big if it's cherished.

Surely: the adverb of a man without an argument.

It seems people spend the majority of their lives believing they're dying, with the only consolation being that at one point they get to be right.

Everything was usual. That was depression: being stuck, clinging to an out-of-date version of oneself.

I think that some laughter comes from escaped horror, doesn't it?

I'm not trying to uncover the facts of my life but to discover the dramatic truth of the situations I was in.

Well, the attractive thing about the subject of happiness is that it is notoriously difficult to write.

Detachment is what interests me, seeing how people couldn't have been any other way, how they were the product of forces that they had no control over.

You can only give things up once they start to let you down.

The whole Melrose series is an attempt to tell the truth, and is based on the idea that there is some salutary or liberating power in telling the truth.

My love is the solitaire she wears and it's priceless.

When was the last time she had trusted God, really rusted Him, without reservations, without a backup plan or a safety net?

The universe looks more and more like a great thought rather than a great machine.

Don't stop at the first no. You have to be a risk taker. If there weren't room for creativity, the patent office would close down.

Don't sacrifice your political convictions for the convenience of the hour.

I'll never sing something that I've never been through. So even if I didn't write it, I have to have at least experienced it.

I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain.

If I was a Pokemon, I'll either be a Psyduck or a Jigglypuff.

Wherever you find marital failure, you will find a breakdown in real communication. Wherever you find marital success, you will find a good communication system.

The primal duties shine aloft, like stars; The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, Are scattered at the feet of Man, like flowers.