To some degree we all live with uncertainty. We have no control over the future. Yet we carry on, we persevere, because, I guess, it's the way we're made.

How much sweeter life would be if it all happened in reverse, if, after decades of disappointments, you finally arrived at an age when you had conceded nothing, when everything was possible.

I first started writing fiction in college because I was attracted to beautiful sentences. I loved to read them. I wanted to write them.

Fear is ... a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do.

Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next?

But the past is long, and the future is short.

It requires a certain kind of bravery, I suppose, to choose the status quo. There's a certain boldness to inaction.

We were a different kind of Christian, the quiet, reasonable kind, a breed embarrassed by the mention of miracles.

I can write all the way through the morning, when my mind is clear, and there are no distractions.

My goal was just to tell the unlikely story in a way that would feel as convincing as possible.

I guess it never is what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different—unimagined, unprepared for, unknown.

Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.

They do say money is the root of all evil."I thought that was supposed to be the love of money."There's neat for you. 'Tis them without it that loves it best.

I will not go back. No bad thing for me to die. I will make it happen so that it happens only once.

A woman can produce what no man can: a child.

No, I have never wanted to be a man. I have often wanted to be more effective as a woman, but I have never felt that trousers would do the trick!

That whole 99% thing, they are all in the 1% of the world. Every one of them pays a cellphone bill that is the yearly income for a family in much of the rest of the world.

Be warned in time, James, and remain, as I do, incomprehensible: to be great is to be misunderstood.

Real. Does that make me imaginary?

God is absolutely good; and so, assuredly, the cause of all that is good.

Creativity is the most practical thing a businessman can employ.