The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make a difference that you lived at all-using the talents that God has given you for the betterment of others.

The purpose of life is not to be happy, the purpose of life is to matter.

It is not that which is beautiful that pleases us, but that which pleases is is called beautiful.

Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.

In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.

A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood.

Thinking is harder work than hard work.