The wonderful thing about books is that they allow us to enter imaginatively into someone else’s life. And when we do that, we learn to sympathize with other people. But the real surprise is that we also learn truths about ourselves, about our own lives, that somehow we hadn’t been able to see before.

To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.

Trouble can always be borne when it is shared.

Thus, in a real sense, I am constantly writing autobiography, but I have to turn it into fiction in order to give it credibility.

As I look back on what I have written, I can see that the very persons who have taken away my time are those who have given me something to say.

Words are humanity's greatest natural resource, but most of us have trouble figuring out how to put them together. Words aren't cheap. They are very precious. They are like water, which gives life and growth and refreshment, but because it has always been abundant, we treat it cheaply. We waste it; we pollute it, and doctor it. Later we blame the quality of the water because we have misused it.

the reason God made February short a few days was because he knew that by the time people came to the end of it they would die if they had to stand one more blasted day.