Whole scenes of your life slip away forever if you don't put them down in ink.

Since that night I have come to understand that sometimes the best families of all are those we create ourselves, the people we choose to be with.

I always tell my writing students that every good piece of writing begins with both a mystery and a love story. And that every single sentence must be a poem. And that economy is the key to all good writing. And that every character has to have a secret.

In New York, the buildings are like mountains in some ways, but they are only alive because of the people living in them. Real mountains are alive all over.

I've never understood why people run to get out of the rain in the summertime... People will drive miles and miles to go jump in a cool swimming hole, but when it rains, they scatter.

Strange, how such a small realization can affect everyone's life forever. In movies there is always a carefully staged moment - a big crescendo of music, close- ups of the actors' faces, the camera slowly pulling away to let all this sink in for the viewer...but, in real life, most all of the extraordinary things happen with no more loudness than a whisper.

Whole scenes of your life slip away forever if you don't put them down in ink.