Life tells you nothing, it shows you everything.

Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.

There were times in my life when I said, "Oh God, I'm making a terrible, terrible mistake here." And on another level it looked as if that's exactly what I had done. All of us can look back across our lives and see what we thought was a disaster was actually a blessing - from a long-term perspective, it was a blessing. With practice, we can shorten the length of time between "what a dumb mistake I've made" and "what a brilliant choice that was.

What a story that would make! How many men and women go through the same rivers, menaced by the same sharp clichés, the same jagged dangers that have threatened us! If the idea stands up, I thought, it would be worth uncovering the typewriter! How Richard-years-ago would have wanted to know: What happens when we set off searching for a soulmate who doesn't exist, and find her?

You choose, you live the consequences. Every yes, no, maybe, creates the school you call your personal experience.

I had experiences along the way that helped me to realize that letting go was the way that worked for me to find something that I, personally, as a reader, love to read.

The highest art form of all is a human being in control of himself and his airplane in flight, urging the spirit of a machine to match his own.