The biggest book for me, when I was fifteen, was Crime and Punishment, which I read in a kind of fever. When I put it down, I thought, if this is what novels are then I want to be a novelist.

Novels are fictions and therefore they tell lies, but through those lies every novelist attempts to tell the truth about the world.

There's hope for everyone. That's what makes the world go round.

Stories only happen to those who are able to tell them.

It always stimulates me to discover new examples of my own prejudice and stupidity, to realize that I don't know half as much as I think I do.

One should never underestimate the power of books.

If you're not ready for everything, you're not ready for anything.

Everything can change at any moment, suddenly and forever.

It often happens that things are other than what they seem, and you can get yourself into trouble by jumping to conclusions.

Memory is the space in which a thing happens for a second time.

It seems to me that I will always be happy in the place where I am not.

Abba, you may not like it, but what I'm doing is important. If you don't agree, then I'm sorry. I can't do anything about it.

If we can find short-term incentives that are consistent with our long-term objectives, it is much easier to make the right decisions in the moment.

Whenever you receive a vision, quickly act on the vision.

We have the universe to roam in in imagination. It is our virtue to be infinitely varied. The worst tyranny is uniformity.

I'm a Christian. I go to church when I can. I was raised Baptist. I went to a Lutheran school. I'm a nondenominational practicing Christian. I have a lot of faith.

If you wish to be popular in society consent to be taught many things you already know.

I definitely don't think that I'm hot doo-doo. I don't.

Hinduism is synonymous with humanism. That is its essence and its great liberating quality.

In wondrous ways do the gods make sport with men. [Lat., Miris modis Di ludos faciunt hominibus.]

The priests of one religion never credit the miracles of another religion. Is this because priests instinctively know priests?