The fiction Im most interested in has lines of reference to the real world.

there isn't enough of anything as long as we live. But at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance prevails.

Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time is short and the water is rising.

That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.

Write about what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets?

And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.

It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.

The places where water comes together with other water. Those places stand out in my mind like holy places.

Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from.

But I can hardly sit still. I keep fidgeting, crossing one leg and then the other. I feel like I could throw off sparks, or break a window--maybe rearrange all the furniture.

If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world.

I always felt that I was a writer, that was what I had to do.

Our wealth is often a snare to ourselves, and always a temptation to others.

I'd advise you to visit New Orleans before you pass away. I really would. Because if you die without seeing New Orleans, you wasted half your life.

Does Pete (Rose) hustle? Before the All-Star game he came into the clubhouse and took off his shoes and they ran another mile without him.

I don't know exactly where ideas come from, it's just a matter of us figuring out how to receive the ideas waiting to be heard.

Rejection is a gift and failure is the best educator, so when someone knocks you down, get back up!

Being independent... is being innovative out of inspiration as well as necessity.

Dive headfirst into things without being too attached to the results

Dentists, lawyers, doctors are all a bunch of thieving bastards.