What we like to think of ourselves and what we really are rarely have much in common.

Quiet people have the loudest minds.

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.

The water was glassy and calm, still candy-colored in the afterglow of sunset.

A life without love is like a tree without fruit.

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

Outside, daylight was bleeding slowly toward dusk.

You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.

People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad.

The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there... and still on your feet.

My mind is like the Titanic, to many brain cells for the life boats.

The man who has done his level best…is a success, even though the world write him down a failure.

In this slipshod age, we need object lessons in language and thought. – Edith Wharton on an address by John Hay

So when I saw you lying in the shed there, I thought that even God couldn't be that cruel. You were everything I ever asked for – so maybe you could also be the love of my life...

In architecture as in all other operative arts, the end must direct the operation. The end is to build well. Well building has three conditions: Commodity, Firmness and Delight.

It was only as I wrote about fear that I began to find paths of access to feelings that were intolerable to me then.

Success in life is defined by how well you deal with plan B.

My smiles don't result from good things, they result in good things.

If they think they can get anyone who could have better handled the complex and difficult issues surrounding North Korea, Iran and other controversies, they are not understanding the world right now.

Who I really am keeps surprising me.