I learned that if I could read, I could cook. I surprised myself I like it.

Without music, life is a journey through a desert.

It's impossible to explain to a Yankee what 'tacky' is. They simply have no word for it up north, but my God, do they ever need one.

I was born and raised on a Carolina sea island and I carried the sunshine of the low-country, inked in dark gold, on my back and shoulders.

I’ve never had anyone’s approval, so I’ve learned to live without it.

The most powerful words in English are, 'Tell me a story.'

Here is all I ask of a book- give me everything. Everything, and don't leave out a single word.

I stood face to face with the moon and the ocean and the future that spread out with all its bewildering immensity before me.

Good writing ... involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear.

There is no teacher more discriminating or transforming than loss.

The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life.

Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?""That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.""I don't much care where –""Then it doesn't matter which way you go.

Sometimes "the fool who rushes in" gets the job done.

I think everything depends on money.

I kind of call myself an atheist, I suppose - although quite a spiritual atheist, I hope.

Be Love; there is nothing greater.

Death and the end of one's life are two very different things indeed.

I think you've got to play the hand that you're dealt and stop wishing for another hand.

In those days, the late 1970s, one of the leading politicians was a soon-to-be uncle by marriage of Arnold Schwarzenegger, named Ted Kennedy.

I'm just inspired by different people, friends around me.

You do not lose your value or preciousness when you grow to be a adult. You are still that miraculous creation. You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.