The recounting of a life is a cheat...even our own stories are obscenely distorted.

This is why I read novels: so I can escape my own unrelenting monologue.

Write the book you want to read, the one you cannot find.

Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.

Go for long walks, indulge in hot baths, Question your assumptions, be kind to yourself, live for the moment, loosen up, scream, curse the world, count your blessings, Just let go, Just be.

There are chapters in every life which are seldom read and certainly not aloud.

Bookish people, who are often maladroit people, persist in thinking they can master any subtlety so long as it's been shaped into acceptable expository prose.

nothing she did or said was quite what she meant but still her life could be called a monument shaped in a slant of available light and set to the movement of possible music

Anyone's childhood can be an act of disablement if rehearsed and replayed and squinted at in a certain light. . .

Words are our life. We are human because we use language. So I think we are less human when we use less language.

The scolding voice is her own, so abrasive and quick, yet so powerless to move her.

Be aware of the high notes, of the blissful faces and their soft messages, and listen for the silent message of a highly decorated gift.

I'm not the first or the lastto stand on a hillock, watching the man she marriedprove to the worldhe's a total, utter, absolute, Grade A pi

When fate hands us a lemon, let's try to make lemonade.

We forgive those who harmed us. And then, with an open heart, we simply as Jesus to heal us.

Courage in the final analysis is nothing but an affirmative answer to the shocks of existence.

I said to my friends that if I was going to starve, I might as well starve where the food is good.

You're happy that people are seeing your work. As for the critics, it really hurts when they knock you.

I know the most important faculty to develop is one for hard, continuous and varied work and living; but the difference between knowing this and doing anything consistent about it is often abysmal.

My bottom line is this is no time to be gambling with our economy

A lot of people like to fool you and say that you're not smart if you never went to college, but common sense rules over everything. That's what I learned from selling crack.