Cameras are a lifesaver for very shy people who have nowhere else to hide. Behind a lens they can disguise the fact that they have nothing to say to strangers.

Some things don’t mix. Some things don’t mix at all, but sometimes in life you have to take the risk.

(You) don't leave the chicken to watch the feed.

One of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family.

Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends. That the book accompanies the reader forever from that day forward is part of literature's profligate generosity.

I was born to be a point guard, but not a very good one.

My attraction to story is a ceaseless current that runs through the center of me. My inexhaustible ardor for reading seems connected to my hunger for storylines that show up in both books and in the great tumbling chaos of life.