When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.

Don't misunderstand me. I am not scoffing at goodness, which is far more difficult to explain than evil, and far more complicated. But sometimes it's hard to put up with.

Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea.

Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space.

A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason. Think of it as the altar of the Muse Oblivion, to whom you sacrifice your botched first drafts, the tokens of your human imperfection.

Disease has always been a much bigger killer of human beings than wars.

I'm the only person you've ever met who has read Longfellow.