The human heart is a dark forest

Time, which is your enemy in almost everything in this life, is your friend in writing.

We are made to persist. that's how we find out who we are.

Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it.

One of the things that draws writers to writing is that they can get things right that they got wrong in real life by writing about them.

The beauty of a fragment is that it still supports the hope of brilliant completeness.

A piece of writing is a dangerous thing," he said. "It can change your life.

Real maturity is the ability to imagine the humanity of every person as fully as you believe in your own humanity.

Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow.

Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order.

Most of us dont live lives that lend themselves to novelistic expression, because our lives are so fragmented.

As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music.

That is the fundamental nature of gifts: they move, and their value increases with their passage.

The basic guarantees of our Constitution are warrants for the here and now, and unless there is an overwhelmingly compelling reason, they are to be promptly fulfilled.

When money and fame happen too late, it's like pouring kerosene over a fire of self-loathing.

Ve haf vays of making you gif us your DNA sample.

Happiness hides in life’s small details. If you’re not looking, it becomes invisible.

I can speak French but I cannot understand it.

The past can be escaped only by embracing something better.

Man lives in time but his life transcends time.

To describe religions as mind viruses is sometimes interpreted as contemptuous or even hostile. It is both. I am often asked why I am so hostile to organized religion.