I never lose sight of the fact that before I was a writer, I was a teacher. I still am. My classroom's just gotten a little bigger.

People work too hard to figure out the meaning of their lives. Why me, why now. The truth is, sometimes things don't happen to you for a reason. Sometimes it's just about being in the right place at the right time for someone else.

A sacrament--like marriage--means living a life better than your natural instincts, so that you're modeling God. And God never gives up.

In half hour my mother has managed to give me what my father couldn't: my past.

We all have things that come back to haunt us. Some of us just see them more clearly than others.

How far can a person go... and still live with himself.

I can get 400 pages down the road and still not know the answer. What I do know is that I have really examined every facet of the situation, and I may not have changed my opinion but I have definitely forced myself to explore why it's my opinion.