I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.

Some of us have a relentless urge to attempt what we can never be good at and neglect our true calling.

A young writer is easily tempted by the allusive and ethereal and ironic and reflective, but the declarative is at the bottom of most good writing.

Anyone who thinks sitting in church can make you a Christian must also think that sitting in a garage can make you a car.

America of the future will be all malls connected by interstates. All because your parents no longer can their own tomatoes.

A person cannot coast along in old destructive habits year after year and accept whatever comes along. A person must stand up on her own two legs and walk. Get off the bus and go get on another. Climb out of the ditch and cross the road. Find the road that s where you want to go. ... The only sermon that counts is the one that is formed by our actions. She would quit drinking and thereby show Kyle life is what you make it. A person can grab hold of her life and change things for the better. This happens all the time. We are not chips of wood drifting down the stream of time. We have oars.

Don't pour the oil directly into my navel, pour it on my sternum and let it run down into my navel, you ignorant peasant.