I think the darker aspect of my fiction-or anybody's fiction-is by its very nature somehow easier to talk about.

At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious.

And there comes a time in your life when you realize that if you don't take the opportunity to be happy, you may never get another chance again.

People sometimes get in the habit of being loyal to a mistake.

You use simple brushstrokes in a screenplay for things over which you would take much greater pains in a novel.

Have you ever noticed that when people use the expression 'I have to say', what follows usually needn't be said?

What if all everybody needed in the world was to be sure of one friend? What if you were the one, and you refused to say those simple words?

My books are elegiac in the sense that they're odes to a nation that even I sometimes think may not exist anymore except in my memory and my imagination.

Worse, I have to admit to feeling the jealousy of one crab for another that has managed to climb out of the barrel.

Bookstores, like libraries, are the physical manifestation of the wide world's longest, most thrilling conversation.

I was the one who did come through that door. You were the one she was waiting for.

The past is a ghost, the future a dream and all we ever have is now.

It stands to reason that anyone who learns to live well will die well. The skills are the same: being present in the moment, and humble, and brave, and keeping a sense of humor. (361)

Spending time alone with God gives us victory over the flesh.

I went to Wimbledon before I could walk. It's just been a lifelong passion.

The thing about a motion picture is that look of film on a big screen takes you into a magical.

My opinion of a good zombie walk is to loll your head as if it's a little too heavy and the muscles have begun to atrophy.

Religion is a temper, not a pursuit. It is the moral atmosphere in which human beings are to live and move. Men do not live to breathe: they breathe to live.

On the very instant that we know that our assailant intends us serious physical harm, we must work just as fast as we can.

People love you when you're successful, but if you're not, who really cares about you?

A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public to him are non-existent.