Personally, I believe there's a limitation to how much politics can change the world--but there's no limitation to how much individuals can change the world.

Try to avoid complaints. Self-pity even when legitimate never fails to undermine your strength.

Do not compare yourself to others. You have a unique destiny and mission that only you can accomplish.

Every person who dedicates his or her life to something that belongs to the greater good is very meaningful.

Everyone has the capacity for courage. We don't need to face extreme circumstances to become admirable people.

I knew that if I wanted to survive, it wasn't about healing or trying to forget. It was about how I could use my life to answer what had happened to us. In many ways, it saved my life.

I really think you stare at yourself and you see things.

I'll protect myself by making up all this crazy stuff. It'll be like a little shell. Like an Easter egg shell that's all decorated.

I became an altar boy because of the solemn face, but I got thrown out at fourteen for laughing. Because the priest used to mumble everything except the church plate takings.

Don't you agree, fuzzball?

And while other passions in your life may at some point begin to bank their fires, the shared happiness of good homemade food can last as long as we do.

I say to people, keep it simple. If you want to change your food, change your breakfast.

my experience as a fiction writer tells me that the deeper I look into myself, the more universal is the experience I find there.

Nature with her wonders blinds and binds one still. There is no escape. I love her utterly through all time and times. All over the world towns to me are prison; green fields are home.

Man must not rely on pure reason; he must mix faith with it.

I believe that the short story is as different a form from the novel as poetry is, and the best stories seem to me to be perhaps closer in spirit to poetry than to novels.