Writing is not a genteel profession. It's quite nasty and tough and kind of dirty.

I've rarely met a miserable, self-pitying blind person.

The heart of their [Walsingham Witnesses] religion seemed to lie in disproving the religion of others.

I think most memoirs, though they purport to be about this particular time or this person you met, are really about the effect that person or time had on you.

Sight is a slick and overbearing autocrat, trumpeting its prodigal knowledge and perceptions so forcefully that it drowns out the other, subtler senses.

I was a good student, sort of funny and athletic. I had friends.

Aversion toward the blind exists for the same reason that most prejudices exist: lack of knowledge. Ignorance is a powerful generator of fear. And fear slides easily into aggression and contempt.

If you lived a good life, you either lived to save or died to save… that which must be saved and kept. Your life would never be meaningless. Not even for a moment.

We talk about how he and Leanne are doing knowing full well there is no sufficient answer.p 294

Do you want to flourish in the garden of life? Life's gardeners pluck the weeds and care only for the productive plants.

I don't think my looks are modern. I always imagined I'd end up doing Chekhov, Ibsen and Shakespeare all my life and never play a contemporary character.

I think the best things happen when you just let go and see what comes in. I find that that's always the most satisfying.

Most presidents come to Washington bright as freshly minted dimes and leave much diminished.

The Obama administration has attempted to prosecute more journalists and journalistic sources under the same Espionage Act she was being investigated under in all previous presidencies combined.

T-shirts and long pants make me easier to find in a crowd, but also easy to disappear in a crowd because if I am wearing this and suddenly I am not, it's like a Harry Potter invisibility cloak.

I do love violets; they tell the history of woman's love.

If you don't think like a winner, you're not going to be a winner.