I really believe that everyone has a talent, ability, or skill that he can mine to support himself and to succeed in life.

The human species was too fond of lying, cheating, envy, ignorance, self-pity, self-righteousness, and utopian visions that always led to mass murder-but until and if it destroyed itself, it harbored the potential to become nobler, to take responsibility for its actions, to live and let live, and to earn the stewardship of the earth.

She says what holds their marriage together is that she feels too damn sorry for him to ask for a divorce.

I kind of build a novel the way marine polyps build a coral reef, it's millions and millions of little precarious bodies stacked on one another. And in my case, that's thousands of minutes I go through to get from one scene to the next and build it that way.

When life hands us a beutiful bouquet of flowers we stare at it in cautious expectation of a bee.

I can't go on to page two until I can get page one as perfect as I can make it. That might mean I will rewrite and rewrite page one 20, 30, 50, 100 times.

Pain is a gift. Humanity, without pain, would know neither fear nor pity.