The first act of insight is throw away the labels.

A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.

The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy.

My continuing passion is to part a curtain, that invisible veil of indifference that falls between us and that blinds us to each other's presence, each other's wonder, each other's human plight.

Southerners love a good tale. They are born reciters, great memory retainers, diary keepers, letter exchangers . . . great talkers.

Insight doesn't happen often on the click of the moment, like a lucky snapshot, but comes in its own time and more slowly and from nowhere but within.

No art ever came out of not risking your neck.

it doesn t matter if it takes a long time getting there; the point is to have a destination.

The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order the continuous thread of revelation.

We are the breakers of our own hearts

People are mostly layers of violence and tenderness wrapped like bulbs, and it is difficult to say what makes them onions or hyacinths.

An English writer telephoned me from London, asking questions. One was, ‘What’s your alma mater?’ I told him, ‘Books.

God will be present whether asked or not.

Somebody asked me once, 'Do you think that swing will ever come back?' And I said, 'Do you think the 1938 Ford will ever come back?'

Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished.

Lust is a strong tower of mischief, and hath in it many defenders, as neediness, anger, paleness, discord, love, and longing.

I have not worked at all... Nothing seems worth putting down - I seem to have nothing to say - it appalls me but that is the way it is.

In working with people across the country and around the world, I've come to know that most of us go through times that re-route our prayer life.

And what's wrong with dimming the harsh reality of life a little, anyway? In essence, being alive is a bloody long and hard walk to death. Why not make it as pleasant along the way as you can?

The problem of the female body is not something that I've studied, but my memoir does treat that theme.

Most people don't know where they stand. One day their boss gives them an eye roll, and it can set back their whole day. It causes enormous stress.