There are certain people who do not feel like they were raised by wolves, and they are the ones who make the world tick. They are the ones who keep everything functioning so the rest of us can worry about what sort of person we should be.

I always had a fantasy of meeting a girl who was as serious as I was.

I hadn't realized until this week that in [Moses'] youth he killed a man, an Egyptian, and buried him under some sandI used to worry that I wasn't enough like Jesus, but yesterday I remembered who was my king; a man who, when God addressed him and told him to lead the people out of Egypt, said, 'But I'm not a good talker! Couldn't you ask my brother instead?' So it should not be so hard to come at this life with a bit of honesty. I don't need to be great like the leader of the Christian people. I can be a bumbling, murderous coward like the King of the Jews.

Writing fiction is a good way to inhabit other minds, if not other lives.

There was not an awareness of pop culture in the household. There was a lot of respect for working hard, and for intellectual and professional achievement.

There are certain people who do not feel like they were raised by wolves, and they are the ones who make the world tick. They are the ones who keep everything functioning so the rest of us can worry about what sort of person we should be.

I've always had individual friends, but I didn't find the people I wanted to learn from as an adult until my midtwenties.