You can't choose your childhood, it's just what happens to you. But after that you choose. And that's really what (makes you).

Childhood isn't just those years. It's also the opinions you form about them afterward. That's why our childhoods are so long.

The vaunted experience of age was perhaps only a matter of wounds and scarring -- that young minds to old minds might be as young bodies to old bodies: stronger, more vital, less twisted by damage.

THE GAP: Closed-Mindedness can create it, Narrow-Mindedness can widen it, Open-Mindedness can close it, Like-Mindedness… Will Bridge It!

And so I learned about grief, and about the absence and emptiness that for a long time make grief unforgettable.

I think being raised spending so much time outdoors was really important - while you're in it, you might not know, but now I think of the things I was thankful for.

I know now that everything I write, I'm going to put out, and I'll have to live with it for the rest of my life.

The world's a stage, & everything else is Vaudeville.

I told personal stories the way [Bill] Cosby would spin a yarn for ten minutes. I think in hindsight it works better as a long story than as a condensed monologue.

Weariness is the shortest path to equality and fraternity-and finally liberty is bestowed by sleep.

Santiago Nasar had often told me that the smell of closed-in flowers had an immediate relation to death for him.

Sometimes it helps to scold yourself, to give yourself advice.

Rise up nimbly and go on your strange journey!