I am very fond of Edith Wharton. She's quite high brow but also a great storyteller. My favorite is 'The House of Mirth.' I also like 'The Reef.

Without books I would not have become a vivacious reader, and if you are not a reader you are not a writer.

Why do you have to be the same as the others? ...Most of them are stupid.

She loved him because he had brought her back to life. She had been like a caterpillar in a cocoon, and he had drawn her out and shown her that she was a butterfly.

When you've lost everything, you've got nothing to lose.

Having faith in God did not mean sitting back and doing nothing. It meant believing you would find success if you did your best honestly and energetically.

The CIA's research program is described in a book called "The Search for the Manchurian Candidate."

Trusting someone was like holding a little water in your cupped hands - it was so easy to spill the water, and you could never get it back.

The degradation to which you subject others comes back, sooner or later, to haunt you.

In my books, women often solve the problem. Even if the woman is not the hero, she's a strong character. She does change the plot. She'll often rescue the male character from some situation.

In both cases, weakness and scruples had defeated strength and ruthlessness.

...unless you value yourself, you won't have the motivation to exercise, get enough sleep, eat healthfully, and care for yourself.

Scary is time passing and sickness and dying and regret and isolation and loneliness and relationship problems - as opposed to a guy in a hockey mask, which didn't seem that scary.

Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind.

In this world, emotion has become suspect - the accepted style is smooth, antiseptic and passionless.

I always wanted to be different. I always wanted to be first.

Everyone knows about The Who, but I didn't. I knew the popular songs like "I Can See For Miles." So that was the first song I worked on because it was the catchiest and easiest.

Lent is a favorable time for letting Christ serve us so that we in turn may become more like Him.

The Federalist Society has done more for the health of the law than any organization I have witnessed in my career.

The artificial heart is very effective as a bridge to transplant, but the number of people that can be saved with human hearts is limited. A perfect artificial heart could save many more patients.

I've been a little bit obsessed with religion, without being a religious person, for about a decade.