When you peered into the windows of someone else's life, you could only guess what was going on.

Sometimes you regret the things you do, but they're over and done. Regretting the things you didn't do is tougher because they're still out there, haunting you with the what ifs.

To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late, to be late is to be forgotten.

Guilt and no guilt: these were the worst things. The only thing worse than the guilt was the fear of getting caught.

I am a summer person.

Iowa City is okay as Midwestern cities go, but theres no food, no culture, no ocean.

For graduate school I ended up going to the University of Iowa, which is, of course, the best graduate writing program in the country.

One is never too young for fine literature . . .

...Every life contains a novel.

Nothing was a natural predator of productive fiction writing like the cell phone. Ditto the laptop. As she had well learned, the laptop could destroy a day.

Meredith immersed herself in the novels. For some reason, fiction hit on the meaning of life so much more concisely than real life itself did.

I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future plusses.

Some women wear a miniskirt to reveal their thighs

We should expose whatever ends are harmful and whatever ideas are false, and not confuse the two.

However strange your style may seem to others, never mind, because it is your style!

There's been a lot of talk about Jack White wanting to work with me, and I've always admired him, and of course, he lives in Nashville, too.

Love is the business of the idle, but the idleness of the busy.

Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction.

Cultures grow on the vine of tradition.

When the sufferers learn to think, then the thinkers will learn to suffer.

Our Lord was 30 years preparing for 3 years of service. The modern stamp is to spend 3 hours preparing for 30 years of service.