Robespierre, crippled and blind, has yet to be healed to the knowledge that service - his desire - is a deed of savage-speaking gentleness, not soft-spoken savagery.

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and nonfiction. And even there, who can be sure?

The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that is cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.

She looked, and a scarlet butterfly flew away from her, away down the length of the tower, and then another, another, an unraveling scarf of butterflies like winged blood.

Archetypes are universal, and, in subtle or extravagant ways, interchangeable.

We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests.

The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it.

When I am fascinated by something, I like to play with it.

I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work.

No one is ever ordinary.

Maidens who stay maidens turn into saints. Old women become sorceresses. Tough jobs, both of these.

You are the vessels of endless love. Your little, soft and melting heart is always carrying it for you and all, endlessly.

Out of all the medical advancements in human history I'm still most in awe of that tiny little piece of toilet paper that can stop a gushing razor cut in its tracks.

If the Holy Spirit is capable of the heavy lifting required to get Pat Robertson to change his mind, then that strikes me as a very good sign.

Well, my books - I think one of the hallmarks of my thrillers is that they're based in reality.

You know the world is messed up when the tallest man in the NBA is Chinese, the best golfer is black, and the best rapper is white.

I wonder how much of the rest of his clothes I could convince him to take off, then wonder where that thought came from. Well I guess I know.

It is better to write of laughter than of tears, for laughter is the property of man.

A lot of people are using the Church, but not a lot of people are loving the Church.

You do miracles if you concentrate your mind on one thing and one thing only.

Loving myself exactly where I am is the only way to get where I'm going