A writer must have all the confidence in the world when writing the first draft and none whatsoever when editing subsequent drafts.

Sometimes I need a place to ask myself impossible questions.

God answered prayers first by teaching the need to ask, second by using friends as holy messengers.

Alex had cooked, and coaxed, and helped Mark form borders around the shapeless days. Alex had given meaning to the word "servant".

Our task is to carry the Lord's peace into every situation, into every duty.

For the Arab, the past does not merely live. The past defines the present.

I was thinking...""We know, " Pedro said, "It was like sitting next to a pressure cooker

His eyes touched lightly, and passed on.

He used a minimum of words and no inflection whatsoever. It was a policeman's manner of speaking, direct and unadorned.

It was typical of the American to identify the one unfinished strand.

Mark felt eyes on him as tight as a sniper's aim.

Books! tis a dull and endless strife:Come, hear the woodland linnet, How sweet his music! on my life, There's more of wisdom in it.

The aim of interpretation is not agreement but understanding

Unlike the bough that shook off her dead leaves violentlylike a wet terrier, unlike the beating of the butterfly, her wings, against the cocoon, some dreams never made a move.

What people say behind your back is your standing in the community.

There's an ecstatic side to writing. It's like jazz. It just has a life.

Falling in love is a crazy thing to do. It's kind of like a form of socially acceptable insanity.

Discretion has been termed the better part of valour, and it is more certain, that diffidence is the better part of knowledge.

I would love to go into an animal's dream - like a lion's or a cat's. I'm sure that's pretty awesome.

I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way.

I love Salt Lake City. It's beautiful with all the great outdoors around you.