We are continually shaped by the forces of coincidence.

Novels are fictions and therefore they tell lies, but through those lies every novelist attempts to tell the truth about the world.

There's hope for everyone. That's what makes the world go round.

Stories only happen to those who are able to tell them.

It always stimulates me to discover new examples of my own prejudice and stupidity, to realize that I don't know half as much as I think I do.

One should never underestimate the power of books.

If you're not ready for everything, you're not ready for anything.

Everything can change at any moment, suddenly and forever.

It often happens that things are other than what they seem, and you can get yourself into trouble by jumping to conclusions.

Memory is the space in which a thing happens for a second time.

It seems to me that I will always be happy in the place where I am not.

Poetry, will you show me where your words find peace?

Why don't people get their children stuffed after they pass away. Why not, I mean you do love them right?

A curve of silver hung amid the brighter specks; it looked to me like a curved dagger, pretty but deadly, as if it might slice the sky in two.

Sometimes a man is intensely, even passionately, attached to suffering — that is a fact.

Thought rules mankind.

The machine does not control the mind of man, though it affects the mind of man; it is the mind of man that can and should control the machine.

Water is the life-giver and the death-bringer.

The first time we put Debbie Downer on the show, I had a giggle fit that I couldn't control, and the whole cast ended up breaking so hard we could never quite recover.

[Allison Janney] could memorize anything.She would memorize in the makeup trailer!

It is important to remember that for every person, there will be a problem. Even more importantly, for every problem, our God has a prescription!