What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end.

But the thing about remembering is that you don't forget.

With a hangover and with fear, it is difficult to put a helmet on your head.

They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.

Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.

Fiction is the lie that helps us understand the truth.

I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.

[Y]ou can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.

Laughter does not deny pain. Laughter - like a wail - acknowledges and replies to pain.

Why do our politicians put warnings on cigarette packs and not on their own foreheads?

It's a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn't felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid.

Singing diminishes sorrow.

What a treacherous thing a body was, how it so blatantly acted out the mind’s secrets.

My mom had Julia Child and 'The Fannie Farmer Cookbook' on top of the refrigerator, and she had a small repertoire of French dishes.

You know my dad pushed me to believe that I was going to be the best. I just never thought of life without tennis, even looking forward.

Never eat while doing something else, because you won't get the satisfaction from your food and you'll be more likely to overeat.

I don't do a huge amount of physical activity. I play tennis, I work out sporadically, and I eat well and take care of myself.

Next to the pastoral came the agricultural life. When you add to that the manufacturing phase of development, society begins to fill out, and needs but wings to fly, and commerce is its wings.

Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

My house is not James Bondish at all. Sorry.

When things start to get rough, you find comfort in your faith. Knowing that no matter what, you can dust yourself off and be okay.