When I still lived in Manhattan, people-watching was my hobby, and I spent many Sunday afternoons eating up the scene from a window seat at a Starbucks on Broadway.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.

I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.

Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space.

You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.

One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

Your problems aren't too big -- perhaps your worship is too small.

You cannot become what you already are.

I was nice to the people in the Philippines for the two and a half years I was there, because I knew even­tually I'd have to kiss up to them so my grandchildren could have toys.

If I have one thing perfect, it's my eyebrows. And my feet. I love my feet. They're like Japanese feet. The rest I would like to hide. Especially my freckles. I feel ridiculous.

When a man is hit by Friendly Fire, his blood pressure lowers and his morale sinks. I have been hit by Friendly Fire in my heart. Sighs spill from my body instead of blood.

If you get to it, and you cannot do it, then there you jolly well are, aren't you?

When it comes to meeting and attracting women, many men are resigned and complacent. We figure some guys were born with that particular power and other guys weren't. I wasn't.

I have the general philosophy of creating the future you want to see.

Anyone who sacrifices his dreams to reality is forever beaten.

Who is not liberal when young, does not have a heart. Who is not conservative when old, does not have a brain.