The advice he reads in Ann Landers – good advice as long as you don’t need it, perfectly sensible as long as you don’t have any use for it.

What to do with the past? There was so much of it.

Sometimes it takes a little jolt to make us appreciate what we’ve got.

However far back you go you will find all experiences linked by slender threads.

The only meaning our lives have is the meaning we give them.

Sometimes pain is God’s megaphone, his only way to get our attention.

Grace means suddenly you’re in a different universe from the one where you were stuck, and there was absolutely no way for you to get there on your own.

Writing about race and crime was not new territory for me. But it can be treacherous. So here are my rules: No stereotypes. No generalizations. No explanations. No apologies. Just the facts, ma’am.

The key of joy is disobedience.

I saw my mother in a different light. We all need to do that. You have to be displaced from what's comfortable and routine, and then you get to see things with fresh eyes, with new eyes.

Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference between an island of make-believe and the same island come true.

Improvisation has been with me since I was a kid, and, taking a selfish pleasure from that, I just thought, "What the hell. It might as well be something other people enjoy."

Louisiana is a place that you escape, not a place that you leave.

Unfortunately Seattle is my muse, for the better or worse of Seattle - I'm not sure.

The worldly comforts are not for me. I am like a traveler, who takes rest under a tree in the shade and then goes on his way.

I don't usually stink. But I stunk today.