If the Lord hasn't got a boyfriend lined up for me to marry, that's his business.

Wake up now, look alive, for here is a day off work just to praise Creation: the turkey, the squash, and the corn, these things that ate and drank sunshine, grass, mud, and rain, and then in the shortening days laid down their lives for our welfare and onward resolve. There's the miracle for you, the absolute sacrifice that still holds back seed: a germ of promise to do the whole thing again, another time. . . Thanksgiving is Creation's birthday party. Praise harvest, a pause and sigh on the breath of immortality.

After 'The Poisonwood Bible' was published, several people believed that my parents were missionaries, which could not be further from the truth.

I stir in bed and the memories rise out of me like a buzz of flies from a carcass. I crave to be rid of them.

Be careful what you give children, for sooner or later you are sure to get it back.

Every time I step onto an airplane, I turn to the right and take a good, hard stare into the maw of the engine. I don't know what I'm looking for. I just do it.

What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive.