When I'm choosing things, there's a level of intelligence I want to peel off, whether it's written in terribly simple sentences, whether it's from the point of view of a dog, or a 15-year-old boy.

Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead.

Boring people don't know they're boring. That's the problem with boring people.

I'm trying always to leave out what I think is extraneous. And to find what I think is the most wonderful language to make a beautiful sentence.

I think it's true that unless human beings experience something, they simply don't understand what people are going through.

I'm the author of my own misery.

I don't think anybody says to Coetzee or Dostoyevsky or Kafka, "Your characters aren't likeable." It's not about your character winning a popularity contest. That's not the writer's job.

It's not the writer who determines how good she is anyway. Writers don't determine that. It's readers who determine that.

Do the obvious, you won't forget it. Do the obvious, you won't regret it. Obvious, obvious, obvious.

Nonfiction gives you subjects. Writing fiction I can have more fun, but I have to invent my subject.

Without curiosity a writer is dead.

The gratitude that you feel leads to faith in the abundance and with every resonance that radiates from your mind more strong feelings of faith start to reside in you.

A feeling of discouragement when you slip up is a sure sign that you put your faith in deeds

God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into the nest. He does not unearth the good that the earth contains, but He puts it in our way, and gives us the means of getting it ourselves.

Instruction does not prevent wasted time or mistakes; and mistakes themselves are often the best teachers of all.

During my solitude, conflicting thoughts increased; but much exercise of soul had the effect of causing the scriptures to gain complete ascendancy over me.

The heart is the first part that quickens, and the last that dies.

A cluttered refrigerator door is to a growing family what a wet nose is to a healthy dog.

Time was away and somewhere else, There were two glasses and two chairs And two people with one pulse.

what's life without a spice of stupidity

I am a pretty recognizable, like, I walk through the airport or something, you are going to spot me right away.