The world was more than a place. Life was more than an event. It was all one thing, and that thing was: story.

Words are the only bread we can really share.

Laughter is a virus that infects you with humanity.

If you were born to be a nail, you had to be hammered.

Poverty ennobles no one; it brutalizes common people and makes them hungry and old.

Everybody knew that being dead could put you in a terrible mood.

Death is alive, they whispered. Death lives inside life, as bones dance within the body. Yesterday is within today. Yesterday never dies.

Is it a crime to want to be good? she cried

Our power comes from the earth

I am in the earth and the earth is in me

They breathed. They felt their lungs fill the sky, and they let the dark clouds inside them flow out. Then they connected to the earth.

A bumper sticker from the 1970s read, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.

Is the energy of your circle positive enough to bring out the best in you? If it's not, then it's time to wisely reposition yourself.

What is really a stretch to me is to make quick decisions.

What do I think about when I strike out? I think about hitting home runs.

Spielberg's film portrays Oscar as a hero of this century. That is not true. Neither he nor I were heroes. We were just what we were able to be. In war we are all souls without a destiny.

There is a sort of human paste that when it comes near the fire of enthusiasm is only baked into harder shape.

Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next.

Literature is what you write when you think you should be saying something. Writing begins when you'd rather be doing anything else: and you've just done it.

The success of the West, including the rise of science, rested entirely on religious foundations, and the people who brought it about were devout Christians.

I try to lead by example.