Therapist’s dilemma: those who need help the most, run the farthest from it.

Life is like a prism. What you see depends on how you turn the glass.

All of us are like locks. No matter how strong the bolt, there’s always a key out there that opens it.

The science of psychotherapy is knowing what to say, the art is knowing when to say it. (36)

The characters emerge from my rather twisted mind. That's another enjoyable part of the job making stuff up.

It didn't feel difficult at the time because I was so charged up about both books. Afterward, however, I was pretty tired. In a good way, like after a great workout.

To trust someone is to take the greatest risk of all. (180)

Optimism is denial for chumps with no life experience". "What's pessimism?" I said. "Religion without God.

Just because others have it worse doesn’t mean you have to suffer in silence.

I would never have been a novelist without working as a psychologist...it was a great education in human nature.

Each novel is harder than its predecessor because I must work harder at not repeating myself. However, I enjoy the challenge. This is the greatest job in the world.

The bigger the mess, the greater the progress.

Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind, and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.

Act well at the moment and you have performed a good action to all eternity.

I used to think I could learn about Jesus by studying Him, but now I know Jesus doesn't want stalkers.

I'll never retire. The new millennium is the age of adventure as far as I am concerned. I'm going up a volcano and off into space.

You can go on like this for a very long time, and no one will notice. You keep thinking you're going to hit some sort of bottom, but I'm here to tell you: There is no bottom.

When I do film, I really take on roles and I take on characters.

I never went to a John Wayne movie to find a philosophy to live by or to absorb a profound message. I went for the simple pleasure of spending a couple of hours seeing the bad guys lose.

God is the very creative energy of existence - creativity rather than a creator. He is not the poet but the poetry, not the dancer but the dance, not the flower but the fragrance.

I tend to focus less on genre as a starting point and more on idea or intention and let the idea dictate genre.