Writing is a hellish task, best snuck up on, whacked on the head, robbed and left for dead.

It's important to attend funerals. It is important to view the body, they say, and to see it committed to earth or fire because unless you do that, the loved one dies for you again and again.

Hope is a gift. You can't choose to have it. To believe and yet to have no hope is to thirst beside a fountain.

Depression is anger slowed down; panic is grief speeded up.

Piece by piece living is hard to do. It may even feel like the hardest thing. But it has this going for it: you never need to know what it is you're carrying on your shoulders.

Memory plays tricks. Memory is another word for story, and nothing is more unreliable.

Lies like that are not a sin, they are a sacrifice.

They are so young, they forget that the world is not as in love with them as they are.

Do you think there's such a thing as a ghost who masquerades as a person? Do you believe that there are people whose bodies are still alive here on earth but whose souls are already in hell?

The world should not be organized to require heroines, and when one is required but fails to appear, we should not judge.

The thief you must fear the most is not the one who steals mere things.

Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.

Love consists in desiring to give what is our own to another and feeling his delight as our own

Adoption is the most intentional process on Earth.

What though youth gave love and roses, Age still leaves us friends and wine.

Nothing short of everything will really do.

What scientists are attached to is journeys into the unknown and discovering things that are completely unexpected and baffling and surprising.

He hasn't an enemy in the world - but all his friends hate him.

Even marginal progress could be affected by investigations in Little Rock and in Washington.

Movies are different from real life.

What kept me going through all the years? More than anything, the love of and respect for competition. That's what it comes down to for me. That's why I do this.