We are at the mercy of time, and for all the ways we are remembered, a sea of things will be lost. But how much is contained in what lingers!

Language is the writer's only tool - we really don't have anything else - but our language contains within it our entire experience of the world.

We are surrounded by story.

A good writer sells out everybody he knows, sooner or later.

Guilt is glorious when it's well earned.

Heightism is the last unchecked prejudice.

The writing itself is the thing that generates stories for me.

When I'm not writing, I can't make sense of out anything. I feel the need to make some sense and find some order, and writing fiction is the only way I've found that seems to begin to do that.

I'd like to be better at short, snappy answers.

Without explaining why, and, most of all, without naming other authors or books, I can only say my novels are influenced by love and death.

I'm always telling my students, don't - don't worry so much third person, first person. It doesn't make that much difference.

Love letters lack taste. No restraint: falling off cliffs, going up in flames.

The New Deal was going to redistribute the national income according to ideals of social and economic justice.

The creation of a single world comes from a huge number of fragments and chaos.

I always saw myself as a singer-songwriter, a solo-artist, that's why working with other artists was never satisfying for me.

The acquirement and enjoyment of physical well-being, mental calm and spiritual peace are priceless to their possessors.

Life has only gotten better personally for me as I've gotten older. I mean, being young was such a gross waste of time. I was just such a miserable, miserable person.

It is impossible to catch today; it flows out from our palms! It is impossible to catch tomorrow; it flows out from our palms! We cannot hold them; they constantly run away from us!

Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything.

If you know how to live in Vegas you can have the best time.

I never used to drink water. I am drinking six liters of water every day now. That's the key.