physical disability looms pretty large in one's life. But it doesn't devour one wholly. I'm not, for instance, Ms. MS, a walking, talking embodiment of a chronic incurable degenerative disease.

Who one believes God to be is most accurately revealed not in any credo but in the way one speaks to God when no one else is listening.

My writing arises out of erotic impulse toward an other: it is an act of love. And I want terribly to be loved in return, as a sign that I have loved well enough.

Poor and afflicted and oppressed people have faces, and we are required to look squarely into them. We can't love what we won't experience.

If the very thought of taking off all your clothes in the middle of the Washington Mall during a school holiday makes you blush, you haven't even begun to dream what it feels like to publish a book.

I will write myself into well-being.

God enters the world through those of us who are willing to let God participate fully in our lives.

The fact is that ours is the only minority you can join involuntarily, without warning, at any time. And if you live long enough, as you're increasingly likely to do, you may well join it.

Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, doubtless two of the most exquisitely adolescent of fictions.

In the grammar of the phallus -- the I, I, I -- [woman] can't utter female experience.

One of the blessings that comes with parental territory is that children tug you into experiences you're pretty sure you'd never otherwise contemplate.

When it hurts, don’t be afraid to say ouch!

Spiritual health is no more stable than bodily; and though we may seem unaffected by the passions we are just as liable to be carried away by them as to fall ill when in good health.

The estimated 11 or so million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States. This is what Mr. [Donald ] Trump promised back in November.

Tempus wanders eternally, bringing death to whomever loves him and being spurned by whomsoever he shall love.

If you don't set the tone for the day, the devil will set it for you.

You can write something that has continuity, but it makes happy endings all the more ridiculous.

When I write new worlds, I work in layers, building and throwing out, and building anew.

Feeling a little small? Well, in the context of the cosmos, we are small.

I got to be constantly reassured that somebody loves me.

Everything must have in it a sharp seasoning of truth.