Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
You always find things you didn't know you were going to say, and that is the adventure.
To the resentment that hides inside love, to the loneliness that hides among companions.
But the day I can't shrug off a twinge of self-pity, is the day I'm washed up for keeps.
I don't think the 'what' distinguishes a good novel from a bad one but rather the 'how.'
Love and freedom are such hideous words. So many cruelties have been done in their name.
The question we do not see when we are young is whether we own pride or are owned by it.
Writers don't write to inform other people, they write to find out something themselves.
There are no impossible obstacles; there are just stronger and weaker wills, that’s all!
Scent is the soul of flowers, and sea flowers, as splendid as they may be, have no soul!
There are parts of Texas where a fly lives 10,000 years and a man can't die soon enough.
I see my writing as the process of looking at the usual, but from two steps to the side.
I question: do we really understand the differences between modernist and postmodernist?
Perspective [is] a luxury when your head [is] constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons.
The jury is out as to whether the Afghans are up to the task of protecting their people.
Whatever part drink may play in the writer's life, it must play none in his or her work.
When I write new worlds, I work in layers, building and throwing out, and building anew.
If ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another.
Science is the poetry of the intellect and poetry the science of the heart's affections.
Read everything. If you haven't read everything, you'll never be able to write anything.
Because I live in California now, I find my musings really being centered in this world.
A faithful friend is a strong defense; And he that hath found him hath found a treasure.
I think this power of living in our children is one of the sweetest things in the world.
I think you've got to play the hand that you're dealt and stop wishing for another hand.
I had a very happy childhood, which is unsuitable if you're going to be an Irish writer.
Of course I wanted children. Bright, gorgeous, loving children. I could almost see them.
It's when you give something that you have very little of, that you truly give. - Arthur
In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things.
The rare pleasure of being seen for what one is, compensates for the misery of being it.
Love is a punishment. We are punished for not having been strong enough to remain alone.
I have never seasoned a truth with the sauce of a lie in order to digest it more easily.
I attended TED in 2007 and 2008, the last two years the conference was held in Monterey.
I love epistolary novels and became wildly excited when the form presented itself to me.
Here's how it is: I feel guilty about every single bite of food that goes into my mouth.
One day we'll all be dead, and none of this will matter" -The Brightest Star in the Sky.
I quickly learned that motherhood was a high wire act sometimes performed without a net.
When you're writing about one community, in a way, you're writing about all communities.
They did more than take our youth away. They also took away the men we were going to be.
It became plain very soon after our marriage that ours was to be a literary partnership.
Teach him to think for himself? Oh, my God, teach him rather to think like other people!
My spirit will sleep in peace; or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell.
Ah! it is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace.
Liberty ... is one of the most valuable blessings that Heaven has bestowed upon mankind.
No penance can your hard heart find save such as you long since have taught me to endure
New York was an idea, I thought, an idea held simultaneously by thirteen million people.
No one knows how it is that with one glance a boy can break through into a girl's heart.
The world, that grey-bearded and wrinkled profligate, decrepit, without being venerable.
To kind of go through life not caring is a spectacular attribute. It's one I wish I had.
You cannot argue stupidity, you just have to accept it patiently as one of those things.
The Atlantic really gave me my writing career - even just the conviction to be a writer.
I was in love, and the feeling was even more wonderful than I ever imagined it could be.