When asked, 'How do you write?' I invariably answer, 'one word at a time.'

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.

Improvement combines effectiveness with simplicity.

Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.

You're amazing, just the way you are.

Writing has been my window-flung wide open to this magnificent, chaotic existence-my way of interpreting everything within my grasp.

So, I don't know what is going to happen when the CD comes out, how well it will sell, etc. But, from a personal point of view, it was a very worthwhile endeavor.

She might be nasty, she might be fat, but I never met a person who would tell her that.

I have nothing to speak of but my self-and what can I say but what I feel.

I loved this smart, funny, big-hearted novel. As hilarious and wise as early Philip Roth, The Mathematician's Shiva will delight and move you.

You know it's funny, when it rains it pours they got money for wars, but can't feed the poor.

What's going to happen - things we're doing are going to have some inflationary consequences.