There are cultures that believe having your photograph taken steals your soul. I don't think there is a stolen soul in a picture, but still - why is it so hard to throw them away?

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.

I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.

Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space.

You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.

One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

Where you are running to is not the answer, who is with you is the power.

I guess she was a life line Sewing our family fabric togetherFrom me to dad to herGave me a sense of continuity Especially when my daughter was bornAs she was slipping away

Dating is all about the chase. It's fun!

Everybody does the things that top people do occasionally. Top people do these things all of the time.

I can maintain my sense of the sacredness of existence only by understanding my own limitations and losing my self-importance.

Once open source gets good enough, competing with it would be insane.

Moving slowly enables us to learn faster.

Fate has terrible power. You cannot escape it by wealth or war. No fort will keep it out, no ships outrun it.

One does not always know how to express the sorrow of the soul. One does not always know how to silence the joy of the heart.

But I want to pray to Allah. I want to be a Christian.