An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.

I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.

Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space.

You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.

One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

I don't like hiking with convicts carrying machetes.

Money-it can buy your kids anything, but it cannot teach them love, respect, and the true value of living life without things.

His mom was more the rich pampered type whose version of natural childbirth meant giving birth without makeup.

That which is bitter to endure may be sweet to remember.

I'm really quite simple. I plant flowers and watch them grow... I stay at home and watch the river flow.

There have been people who have categorized the bands of perception in different yogic systems. It gives them pleasure to create names and orders and to make catalogs. Human beings like that.

True love can't be bought.

In antiquity slaves were, in all honesty called slaves. In the middle ages, they took the name of serfs. Nowadays they are called wage earners.

I have gone through a period of seeking to understand what or how strong or what are the connections I have to God.

I don't believe you really know God if you do not recognize His sense of humor.

A conflagration always made such a nice backdrop to a battle. Fire made everything so much more joyously apocalyptic.