In what we think of as bad dialogue, the characters talk directly to each other.

A chaplain's biggest gift is to be present and just listen.

Statuettes of drunken sailors, velvet pictures of island maidens, plastic seashell lamps made in Taiwan. What contempt the people who think up souvenirs have for other people.

Not having to own a car has made me realize what a waste of time the automobile is.

Women have the feeling that since they didn't make the rules, the rules have nothing to do with them.

Laughter is the jam on the toast of life. It adds flavor, keeps it from being too dry, and makes it easier to swallow.

...is this not in fact the purpose of young Americans going abroad? To make them think of things they never thought of?

The whole process of writing a novel is having this great, beautiful idea and then spoiling it.

Glenda Adams has written a wicked and witty novel.

But novels are never about what they are about; that is, there is always deeper, or more general, significance. The author may not be aware of this till she is pretty far along with it.

Any essayist setting out on a frail apparatus of notings and jottings is a brave person.

Be humble: have the courage to speak the truth.

All I want is to sleep--to dream. Life is better in dreams.

Incidentally, I only have one cavity, and as much as my dentist asks me to, I just can't bring myself to floss.

She stirs things inside me that I don't even know I'm feeling until it's too late. Whenever I'm around her, all I can think about is her, no one else, not even myself.

Roger Collins wasn't the most popular teacher at school only because he was interesting in class. In fact, most of the girls would have loved a little after-class attention from this teacher.

For example, many colleges in their writing programs teach some of my work.

Gratitude not only encourages our hearts, it produces peace. And we could all use a little more peace these days.

Man, if he would live, must worship. He looks around, and what to him, within the vision of his life, is the greatest and the best, that he falls down and does reverence to.

Everything in nature is a puzzle until it finds its solution in man, who solves it in some way with God, and so completes the circle of creation.

You change the world by being yourself.