What we know about who we are comes from stories. It's the agents of our imagination who really shape who we are.

What I've come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion.

You know, you can steel your heart against any kind of trouble, any kind of horror. But the simple act of kindness from a complete stranger will unstitch you.

In this time of the Internet and nonfiction, to be on an actual bookshelf in an actual bookstore is exciting in itself.

The privilege of being a writer is that you have this opportunity to slow down and to consider things.

People think that writing is writing, but actually writing is editing. Otherwise, you're just taking notes

My friend Ronald Gottesman says...that the cause of all our trouble is the belief in an essential, pure identity: religious, ethnic, historical, ideological.

You can count on Scandinavian literature for a certain kind of darkness, a modern mythic style.

Men do communicate, often very directly, but women sometimes cannot accept how simple what we have to say is. We seldom play games--we aren't that sophisticated.

Before you speak, my friend, remember, a spiritual man contain his anger. Angry words are like slap in de face.

Time was the only variable in every equation of power and oppression--how long before the pot boiled over.

Every child should be taught how to read, write and think.

O holy Sunday, let your darkness not come along my way. Let her nurture internal and external world, as I start my personal day.

If you let something scare you to death, then the worst has happened.

The sleep he went back to was never the one he left.

I only like two kinds of men, domestic and imported.

It's terrifying, that unconditional love you have for a child. I still wonder if she really came from me, from my womb. It's a miracle. I don't understand it. I live it very intensely.

I asked a shop owner if he could help me out. He said: "What way did you come in?"

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.

Historically, if you look at people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, people with disposable incomes have always been agricultural innovators.

It's important to lighten up a bit!