When I'm not writing, I can't make sense of out anything. I feel the need to make some sense and find some order, and writing fiction is the only way I've found that seems to begin to do that.

Language is the writer's only tool - we really don't have anything else - but our language contains within it our entire experience of the world.

We are surrounded by story.

A good writer sells out everybody he knows, sooner or later.

Guilt is glorious when it's well earned.

Heightism is the last unchecked prejudice.

The writing itself is the thing that generates stories for me.

I'd like to be better at short, snappy answers.

Without explaining why, and, most of all, without naming other authors or books, I can only say my novels are influenced by love and death.

We are at the mercy of time, and for all the ways we are remembered, a sea of things will be lost. But how much is contained in what lingers!

I'm always telling my students, don't - don't worry so much third person, first person. It doesn't make that much difference.

You are imminently connected with this universe through your breathing. You can improve this great relationship by breathing consciously and appreciating this universe in this process.

In love, we are made perfect.

Your deepest valleys lead you to your highest mountaintops.

If it feels like you're choosing between the lesser of two evils, don't. There is always a higher choice.

You can send a message around the world in one-fifth of a second, yet it may take years for it to get from the outside of a man's head to the inside.

We're gonna have a much better health care plan at much less money.

The Lord of Light in his wisdom made us male and female, two parts of a greater whole. In our joining there is power. Power to make life. Power to make light. Power to cast shadows.

To me, being able to find gratification in more venues, rather than greater gratification in a few, seems like a much more sane way of living.

Nature is the chart of God, mapping out all His attributes.

To get scared is something not in my personality.