We do have trouble dealing with death, but it's the one thing that is guaranteed we are all going to have to do, and we are going to have to face it many times before we die ourselves.

life ain't supposed to be nothing, 'cept maybe tough

...One reason I became a writer was that I figured out that if you call yourself a writer, you can read all you want and people think that you are working.

I woke up one morning and realized that what I wanted to say to everyone - children, young people, adults - was: Read for your life.

What a gift of grace to be able to take the chaos from within and from it create some semblance of order.

I was behaving, just like I promised, but fate intervened.

You don't have to fight dragons to write books. You just have to live deeply the life you've been given.