The - the sort of thing that I want to do is to strike a resonant chord of universality in other people, which is best done by fiction.

Memory blurs, that's the point. If memory didn't blur you wouldn't have the fool's courage to do things again, again, again, that tear you apart.

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

I never change, I simply become more myself.

How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.

Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.

Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light.

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be

Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!

The most cruel and disobedient people will be saved, if there is one who would stand before God for His people

You can NEVER be like someone else! Just be yourself and you will find that you'll be much happier that way and accomplish more as well.

There is a sort of elation about sunlight on the upper part of a house.

I've got this theory that there is a Volvo in any sane person's future.

I'm so touched that complete strangers will send me a script asking me to be in their film. That still amazes me - and sometimes for a lot of money too.

Some of us wake up in the morning and just wonder how it is any of us actually sustain a paid job.

I like this town, it's really great. They've put me in The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. This town is about music. It's about the kind of music I like.

A man's indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude.

Behind every great man there stands a great woman. Behind every great woman is a great behind.

White women are a problem, that's, you know - we all live with that.