That was the way things worked. When you were looking for the big fight, the moment that you thought would knock everything over, nothing much happened at all.

Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.

Part of it is living in Tennessee. I'm so out of the loop. And as a person, I'm out of the loop. I'm oblivious by nature.

Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.

No matter how much we love a book, the experience of reading it isn't complete until we can give it to someone who will love it as much as we do

Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.

You are always someones favorite unfolding story

Just because things hadn't gone the way I had planned didn't necessarily mean they had gone wrong.

I can write for any magazine now, in any voice. I can do it in two hours, I could do it in my sleep, it's like writing a grocery list.

There can be something cruel about people who have had good fortune. They equate it with personal goodness.

Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined.

Charity erodes the cultural prerequisites for a vigorous democracy.

In my business you measure your respect by the enemies you make.

Nobody can fail to lose weight in the jungle, unless they've got a secret stash of pork pies somewhere.

I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice.

I know sociologically that words, the power of the word, words stigmatize people.

Already for thirty-five years he had not stopped talking and almost nothing of fundamental value had emerged.

I feel so good singing songs that I sang with my father.

I would like the whole world to be full of feminine qualities. Then only can wars disappear.

Today's business model is bad for people, bad for the economy and bad for stability and democracy.

I still dwelled deep in my elected paradise--a paradise whose skies were the color of hell-flames--but still a paradise.