We can rarely tell others what we really think about them--not just because it would so wound them, but also because it would so wound ourselves.

The only time you truly become an adult is when you finally forgive your parents for being just as flawed as everyone else.

Because there is no meaning to be found in the arbitrary nature of things., It's all random. Just as space is blue. And birds fly through it.

There is much to be said for solitude.

If there is an abiding theme in 'The Pursuit of Happiness,' it is the idea that you come into the world already shaped by other people's past histories.

Tragedy is one of the larger prices we pay for being alive. No one ever sidesteps tragedy. It is always there, shadowing us.

We all talk about how much we hate lies. Yet we prefer, so often, to be lied to....because it allows us to dodge all those painful truths we'd rather not hear.

Success is a very fragile veneer. I get wary of people who embrace celebrity. It ruins people.

Words matter, words have import.

I want to be a popular novelist who's also serious, or a serious novelist who's also very accessible.

All our stories are simultaneously unique and desperately similar, aren't they?

There is no reality other than perceptual reality.

Umbrellas raining upon me, as these cloudy tears give me shelter.

I never lost my belief, in the midst of setbacks which were not spared me during my period of struggle. Providence has had the last word and brought me success.

I am not a juicy painter.

There are many stressed single parents who may be working two jobs in order to keep the family together.

Being fired was the best luck of my life. It made me stop and reflect. It was the birth of my life as a writer.

I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places … In the most unlikely places I will bless your efforts and reward your perseverance with small indications of your victory.

All great successes are the triumph of persistence.

In spite of everything, I shall rise again

One of the sweet and expectable aspects of life afloat is the perpetual present moment one lives in and a perception that time is nothing more than the current, an eternal flowing back to the sea.