...but fear of death gives us strength.

I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.

I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.

A story only matters, I suspect, to the extent that the people in the story change.

But there was a kitten on my pillow, and it was purring in my face and vibrating gently with every purr, and, very soon, I slept.

Books were safer than other people anyway.

Nobody looks like what they really are on the inside. You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of everybody.

I make art, sometimes I make true art, and sometimes it fills the empty places in my life. Some of them. Not all.

Words save our lives, sometimes.

You get on with your own life. Lettie gave it to you. You just have to grow up and try and be worth it.

They were not my friends, after all. They were just the people I went to school with.

There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.

I would disapprove of another hospitable man who was excessive in friendship, as of one excessive in hate. In all things balance is better.

The strongest men are the most alone.

Life is a very brief candle especially when you burn it at both ends

Holiness of heart and life. This is not the perfection of the human nature, but the holiness of the divine nature dwelling within.

Part of America's genius has always been its ability to absorb newcomers, to forge a national identity out of the disparate lot that arrived on our shores.

There's so much world to see, what's stopping you from flying free?

Nothing clears a troubled mind better than shooting a bow.

George W. Bush will not offer one word of criticism for any president. Not Clinton. Not Obama.

Ages are All Equal. / But Genius is Always Above The Age.