The essence of charity ... was not deciding what others needed and giving it to them, but giving them what they wanted.

Oh, that sound? I'm in the hot tub, reading a novel.

Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.

Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.

I suspected that there were things he knew that I had been waiting all my life to learn.

In many ways, being honest about 'Huckleberry Finn' goes right to the heart of whether we can be honest about our heritage and our identity as Americans.

Even if my marriage is falling apart and my children are unhappy, there is still a part of me that says, 'God, this is fascinating!'

Take naps. Often new ideas come together when you are half asleep, but you have to train yourself to remember them.

Candy is my fuel. Ice cream, too.

But what truly horsey girls discover in the end is that boyfriends, husbands, children, and careers are the substitute-for horses

In every society, the artists will be the ones who set themselves up as contrary to whatever the society expects.

A boy has other people do the talking for him

To react is one's choice.

Sometimes the guilty one is not the person who has committed the crime, but the person who has created the possibility for it to be committed.

The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going.

Civilized life has altogether grown too tame, and, if it is to be stable, it must provide a harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting.

I think Yahoo is a great company, with great assets.

Obscenities are too often used for shock value, as a kind of shorthand for real expression of emotion. You've got to scale down your monstrosities. A scream is not a discovery.

Woman is generally so bad that the difference between a good and a bad woman scarcely exists.

I can't run away when I'm scared. I always have to attack. That's how I deal with seemingly difficult things.

O, popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?