I have found that each of my books has developed out of something I have written in a previous book. Some thought evidently unfinished.

A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one.

When a wave of love takes over a human being... such an exaltation takes him that he knows he has put his finger on the pulse of the great secret and the great answer.

We cannot live without the Earth or apart from it, and something is shrivelled in a man's heart when he turns away from it and concerns himself only with the affairs of men

I do not understand how anyone can live without some small place of enchantment to turn to.

A woman never forgets the men she could have had; a man, the women he couldn't

It seems to me that the earth may be borrowed but not bought. It may be used but not owned. We are tenants, not possessors, lovers and not masters.

Fear is the most easily taught of all lessons, and the fight against terror, real or imagined, is perhaps the history of man's mind.

Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time.

Ants in the house seem to be, not intruders, but the owners.

Readers themselves, I think, contribute to a book. They add their own imaginations, and it is as though the writer only gave them something to work on, and they did the rest.

Statistically speaking, there is a 65 percent chance that the love of your life is having an affair. Be very suspicious.

A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward.

... Really get to know and establish relationships with your teammates because they are your new family and they will be the ones there for you when anything goes wrong.

My random acts of violence weren't random. They were premeditated.

When I started having kids, I thought, 'I don't want to do anything they can't watch.'

Horse is fine. I'll ride a horse.

A good man knows when to sacrifice himself, a bad man survives but loses his soul.

Your friend is intellectually honourable," Jimmy's mother would say. "He doesn't lie to himself.

When you know youre whoring it hurts. I have kids. I'm not going to run down an actor for doing this.

My relationship with my mother has always felt like the most complicated relationship of my life. I know I have a lot more writing to do on this.