literature is an instrument of a culture, not a summary of it.

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.

After a certain number of years, our faces become our biographies.

To want to be what one can be is purpose in life.

If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage.

Is there a word more passionate than passion? Obsession, total immersion, the feeling that everything else doesn't matter.

To imagine the unimaginable is the highest use of the imagination

In saying what is obvious, never choose cunning. Yelling works better.

The power of language, it seems to me, is the only kind of power a writer is entitled to.

Traveling is seeing; it is the implicit that we travel by.

Your relationship with others is your relationship to yourself mirrored back to you.

I felt like I kind of got to know [Elvis Presley], and got a little peek inside what was going on there. That was pretty amazing.

But who cares? I can honestly look back and realize that everything happened for a reason. Everything that fell apart has fallen back into place beautifully and magically.

I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.

That man who is more then his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis.

The last thing a real cop wants to do is write a ticket. That's the truth.

I'm terribly nostalgic, but I'm with the Elizabethans who thought nostalgia was a disease. It's a dangerous place to be because you can get caught up in it.

Those who do not love me do not deserve to live.

I'm a huge David Wain fan. He's one of my best friends now, but he just makes me laugh continually, much to the annoyance of his wife.

In wickedness of pride is lost the light to understand how little grace is earned and how much given.