Readers of fiction read, I think, for a deeper embrace of the world, of reality. And that's brave. I never get over being thankful for that - for the courage of my readers.

Hope is a renewable option: If you run out of it at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning.

If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life.

Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can't even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain.

Finally, cooking is good citizenship. It's the only way to get serious about putting locally raised foods into your diet, which keeps farmlands healthy and grocery money in the neighborhood.

We came from Bethlehem, Georgia bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle.

Maybe life doesn't get any better than this, or any worse, and what we get is just what we're willing to find: small wonders, where they grow.

Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

It's what you do that makes your soul.

Pain reaches the heart with electrical speed, but truth moves to the heart as slowly as a glacier.

The trick is finding a person whose flaws don't drive you crazy...you know...someone whose flaws you can live with...someone who can stand your flaws, too.

Music helps us understand where we have come from but, more importantly, what has happened to us.

Welcome to the apocalypse. Where make-do is a motto and life seems wrong, out-of-place. Where the weak become strong because they have no other choice.

I'm just a girl trying to learn where to put my feet ... and where not to.

I haven't took no punishment. There's nothing cool about taking punishment.

Music is more objective, I think, than a lot of art is, but a surprising amount of it is cultural.

Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm

I believe in the capacity of India to offer nonviolent battle to the English rulers.

I have never had time for the idea of searching. Whenever I wanted to express something, I did so without thinking of the past or the future.

You are the strongest argument, yet, against cloning.