Romanticizing the act of writing or any other art is not very helpful to the artist or the art. It's much better if one simply does.

A woman whose smile is open and whose expression is glad has a kind of beauty no matter what she wears.

Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life.

Some people who think they are in unhappy marriages are just in unhappy bodies.

A person who has no secrets is a liar. We always fold ourselves away from others just enough to preserve a secret or two, something that we cannot share without destroying our inner landscape.

People always tell me either A. you love him. B. you hate him. My usual answer? C. All of the above.

I am not a perfect friend, and it is impossible not to rebuff or be rebuffed if you move about the world.

I've told the same story twelve different ways, but I think that's just part of what writers do. Once may not be enough.

What other people think of me is not really my major concern in life. What other people think of what I write is another matter.

I have two writer daughters, and a psychoanalyst daughter, and a lawyer daughter, and they wish we didn't write, I'm sure, but we write. If we were a painting family, we would paint.

You really can't say things that upset someone in print and expect them to be nice and leave you their money. That's just not reasonable.

Venture deep into the wilderness of lost thought to the point that you physically shiver with apprehension, and there you will find creativity

Reputations seldom deliver on promises of happiness.

Fish and visitors stink after three days.

Human understanding more easily invents new things than new words.

To create a mess in which we perish by our own inaction makes nonsense of our claim to consciousness and morality

When someone entrusts their heart to you they are giving you a piece of their soul. You cannot treat the soul casually. You must protect, nurture and handle it with care.

It's always good to be working.

My time in the World Rally Championship has been a useful stage in my career, but I can't deny the fact that my hunger for F1 has recently become overwhelming.

Without a belief in personal immortality, religion surely is like an arch resting on one pillar, like a bridge ending in an abyss.

Having faith does not mean having no difficulties, but having the strength to face them, knowing we are not alone.