To ask a novelist to talk about his novels is like asking somebody to cook about their dancing.

There's solace in the thought that I will never finish missing her.

There is no remedy for death--or birth--except to hug the spaces in between. Live loud. Live wide. Live tall.

These are the stories that we tell ourselves and only ourselves, and they are better left unshared.

...crushed between the fears of going forward and the dread of going back.

Secrets are like pregnancies hereabouts. You can hide them for a while but then they will start screaming.

Try pitching a story of happiness to your editors and their toes are going to curl up.

Retiring from writing is not to retire from life, but retiring from writing is to avoid the inevitable bitterness which a writing career is bound to deliver as its end product, in almost every case.

My father had osteomyelitis-his left arm was withered between his elbow and his shoulder ... . But the amputation of a Stone Age man called Leaf, a stoneworker, does not relate to my father at all.

I felt that, in some ways, my novels lacked heart because of the distance between me and the subject matter. But no one wants to read a book based on good health, a happy upbringing, a long marriage.

Ah, kindness. What a simple way to tell another struggling soul that there is love to be found in the world.

Every adversity can be a blessing. May you have the courage to overcome any adversity.

Wisdom is the fruits of reflection...

I just think there's a general interest in the world of computers.

Don't just stand back and play the way you're coached. A great player must rise to the occasion and turn the game around on his own.

I've never had my hair cut by anybody, I do it all myself.

The snakes are always against the prohibition of the poisons; and the arms traders, of the arms!

I love my friends. They're my family.

The greatest obstacle to progress is not man's inherited pugnacity, but his incorrigible tendency to parasitism.

If I could give my teenaged self any advice, it would be 'Calm down!'