We live, we die. Somewhere along the way, if we're lucky, we may find someone to help lighten the load.

If you are writing any book about the end of the world, what you are really writing about is what's worth saving about it.

Behind every writer stands a very large bookshelf.

My inventing time is all done under the influence of aerobic exercise. Basically, I do all my thinking while I run.

I grew up during the Cold War, when everything seemed very tenuous. For many years, right up until the fall of the Berlin Wall, I had vivid nightmares of nuclear apocalypse.

This ravishing world. This achingly bittersweet, ravishing world.

I have any number of completely dark obsessions and fascinations, and none of this was present in my profile or my growing profile as a writer.

What strange places our lives can carry us to, what dark passages.

My theory of characterization is basically this: Put some dirt on a hero, and put some sunshine on the villain, one brush stroke of beauty on the villain.

My rule has always been, write the next part of the book that you seem to know well. So I won't necessarily write chapter two after chapter one.

Even on the darkest night, my friend, life will have its way.

I believed that I wanted to be a poet, but deep down I just wanted to be a poem.

Like an athlete trains, so must the student of life.

Burning her husband's bed was a mistake. Alison could see that now.

Unless I had the spirit of prayer I could do nothing.

I can tell you from experience that God's help and presence in our lives is vital. He is the Author of all true success and everything that is good-without Him, we can do nothing of true value.

A beautiful god is the most noble product of Man.

Human life is beyond comprehension.

History, human or geological, represents our hypothesis, couched in terms of past events, devised to explain our present-day observations.

Remember to write for yourself, not for a market and give yourself time to develop your own style, your own voice. It takes a lifetime. Enjoy it!

To conquer oneself is the best and noblest victory; to be vanquished by one's own nature is the worst and most ignoble defeat.