The point is that it looks like gambling because the language of the game is money.

The point is not to pay back kindness but to pass it on.

Each of us will have to make the choices that allow us to be the largest versions of ourselves.

It's like my whole world is coming undone, but when I write, my pencil is a needle and thread, and I'm stitching the scraps back together.

A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart.

I write to find out what I am thinking. I write to find out who I am. I write to understand things.

A book does not discriminate against any reader. All are welcome at the table of literature.

Don't plan it all. Let life surprise you a little.

Everyone needs a strong sense of self. It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life.

I admit that for me love goes deeper than the struggle, or maybe what I mean is, love is the deeper struggle.

Every writer can tell you that a book is only truly alive when it finds passionate readers who bring it alive in their imaginations.

Miami drivers will attempt to pass you inside a car wash.

I don't compete with other discus throwers. I compete with my own history.

Flatterers look like friends, as wolves like dogs.

We all strive to find moments of clarity, of order.

The reason why I spend so much money for my journals is to press me to find something valuable to put in them.

Pursuing a God-ordained passion, no matter how crazy it seems, is the most responsible thing you can do.

We had a dog, Apples. He was 13 years old, toothless, blind and had the worst breath this side of Jabba the Hut. But he was the sweetest dog, and I cried and cried when he died.

I don't want to do anything to embarrass my family or my church because the town that I come from is so small. There are certain things that I just can't be part of because of my foundation.

It's time to realize that one cannot combat one injustice by invoking and using another injustice

My God, I'd rather go to Europe than go to heaven.