You surely know that in the course of a long marriage it is not unusual for a husband or a wife to develop a crush on someone else.

I suspect the most we can hope for, and it's no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love.

Traits don't change, states of mind do.

I actually see myself in all my characters. In order to imagine what it feels like to be another person I have to use my own experiences and responses to the world.

The facts didn't matter. Their stories mattered, and each of their stories belonged to each of them alone.

Had they known at these moments to be quietly joyful? Most likely not. People mostly did not know enough when they were living life that they were living it.

I'm so interested in the fact that we really don't know anybody. We think we know the people close to us, but we don't, we really don't.

In a way, I'm very interested in writing about Maine, because I think Maine represents its own kind of history. It's the oldest state, and it's the whitest state.

People like to think the younger generation's job is to steer the world to hell. But it's never true, is it? They're hopeful and good - and that's how it should be.

Or maybe, he thought, returning to the boxes, it was part of being Catholic--you were made to feel guilty about everything

I do write by hand. I just think - I don't know, it's a physical thing for me. It's a bodily thing. It literally has to earn its way through my hand.

When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less.

Some people may have thought that this book was too personal, too confessional. But what these people think about me is none of my business.

Where young boys plan for what they will achieve and attain, young girls plan for whom they will achieve and attain.

The popularity of conspiracy theories is explained by people's desire to believe that there is - some group of folks who know what they're doing

I had a great career and I enjoyed all of it, with the exception of losing.

Success is the inner satisfaction and peace of mind that come from knowing I did the best I was capable of doing for the group.

Rule number one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.

Drinking Garri doesnt mean you're poor, but allowing the garri to swell-up before drinking is Poverty

He reached for his pocket, and found there, only reality

Because women and girls are not valued equally as human beings, they are treated as less than such. Female genital mutilation is one example of this that has to be stopped.