How can there be so many mothers in the world but so little sense of what it might be to become one?

Hope is like one of those orchids that grows around toxic waste: lovely in itself - and an assertion, if you like, of indefatigable good - but a sure sign that something nasty lies underneath.

As writers go, I have a skin of average thickness. I am pleased by a good review, disappointed by a bad. None of it penetrates far enough to influence the thing I write next.

That's writing for you: when you make space for passion, it doesn't turn up.

The creativity of childhood was often surrendered amid feelings of unworthiness. So the idea that ­others are demanding to be given it back - to be "taught" - is disturbing.

Childhood, after all, is not an ending, but rather a state full of potent curiosity.

Even if they knew the truth of their own feelings, most mothers would be socially and emotionally incapable of revealing it.

Honest criticism, I suppose, has its place. But honest writing is infinitely more valuable.

Hope is one of those no-win-no-fee things, and although it needs some encouragement to survive, its existence doesn't necessarily prove anything.

People are least aware of others when demonstrating their own power over them.

Reality might be described as the eternal equipoise of positive and negative.

When you are born you have two different potential for the world: You will either be a gift to the world or a trouble to the world!

Motivate yourself, you can be great.

At every level in our inventory, nothing seems special about our Earth, our Sun, our Galaxy, our Local Group. Evidently, mediocrity reigns throughout. Such is our niche in the Universe.

My career goals generally remain the same, but my short time goals constantly change either because I've reached them all or they no longer fit into my current strategy.

All that matters is, how big do you want to dream, and how hard do you want to work?

Every creature and plant is part of her (mother nature's) amazing interconnected garden... The whole world is a garden.

You only get one chance at life, not two! Don't joke around with your own life.

Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.

I won't go up in a plane, but if a play crashes, I'll jump into the next one that comes along and take it up for a spin.

The person who gossips is a terrorist who drops a bomb, destroys, and they destroy others.