She is stunned that in this town there are no sidewalks to speak of, no streetlights, no public transportation, no stores for miles at at a time.

That's what books are for... to travel without moving an inch.

Fiction is the only way I know a human being can inhabit the mind of another human being.

Pack a pillow and blanket and see as much of the world as you can.You will not regret it.

I am drawn to any story that makes me want to read from one sentence to the next. I have no other criterion.

A bicultural upbringing is a rich but imperfect thing

Pet names are a persistant remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder, too, that one is not all things to all people.

Somehow, bad news, however ridden with static, however filled with echoes, always manages to be conveyed.

The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace.

That the last two letters in her name were the first two in his, a silly thing he never mentioned to her but caused him to believe that they were bound together.

It didn't matter that I wore clothes from Sears; I was still different. I looked different. My name was different. I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different.

when things are not happening the way you expect them to be know that something is happening the way God plan it for you

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.

Fame should be left to the film stars.

The notion of time bothers me. You look at thirty-year-old photographs and realize how the time has passed.

Once you choose hope, anything's possible

Every human being is called to solidarity in a world battling between life and death

We are all selfish, scared and stupid.

It cannot be stressful. It just has to be fun. There are many, many things to stress for in this life -- not getting ready for a red carpet.

It takes faith and the courage to risk failure in order to realize one's destiny. Having had my share of failures throughout my career I know that it is well worth the risk.

Our common language is English. And our common task is to ensure that our non-English-speaking children learn this common language.