We too had branched off from the people who had come before us, a family that made the family that made us, and we were shining in the darkness and casting our light all around us.

Doesn't it seem that it is always by chance that these things happen, or is it because of the generosity of a shared knowledge of suffering that allows for it?

Fear is an inhibitor that has kept more people from fulfilling their destiny than any other one emotion.

We have gone through some difficult times like everyone else and perhaps our working together and respecting each other's abilities, in addition to that little thing called love, helped us survive.

I learned a lot from my Mom. My favorite lesson: remember there is no such thing as a certain way to parent and to remember that you are learning along with your child - it's ok to make mistakes.

In my circle of friends, I've always been loud and funny and talkative. But as soon as I step out of that circle, I get very quiet and introspective. I don't want the spotlight on me.

There's no division on my bookshelf between fiction and nonfiction. As far as I'm concerned, fiction is about the truth.

It's the only thing that keeps me going these days, travelling. Changes of scene, changes of faces

And I always keep cards people send me. I have a whole wall covered with them.

The atmosphere of orthodoxy is always damaging to prose, and above all it is completely ruinous to the novel, the most anarchical of all forms of literature.

In the words of the old song, it's a long time from May to December but, you know, it's an equally long time from December to May.

What is today a matter of academic speculation begins tomorrow to move armies and pull down empires.