I know that to write you have to have stories you want to tell. You have to keep your mind alive, and you have to work hard.

You do the right thing even if it makes you feel bad. The purpose of life is not to be happy but to be worthy of happiness.

If you live in the same small place long enough, something you don't like is bound to happen

I do believe in God. I think God has given so much power to people, and intelligence, and said, 'Well, you are on your own. Maybe I'm tired, I need a nap. You are mature. Why don't you look after yourselves?' And I think He's been sleeping too much.

At first, I spend about four hours a day writing. Toward the end of a book, I spend up to 16 hours a day on it, because all I want to do is make it good and get it done.

I usually write about ordinary people and ordinary things, but Paul Farmer is the least ordinary person I've ever met... He's the leader of a small group of people who hope to cure a sick world, and I hope my book can help in some small way.

In order to go on with our lives, we are always capable of making the ominous into the merely strange.