You can't teach talent. You can't put in what God left out - but you can teach confidence.

Not only is your story worth telling, but it can be told in words so painstakingly eloquent that it becomes a song.

I don't believe that life is supposed to make you feel good, or to make you feel miserable either. Life is just supposed to make you feel.

Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes.

The music in his laughter had a way of rounding off the missing notes in her soul.

A loud voice is not always angry; a soft voice not always to be dismissed; and a well-placed silence can be the indisputable last word.

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go... And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.

The intelligence community, for the most part, has no accountability at all; to the Congress, to us the American people, and so they feel that they above the law.

One should be able to return to the first sentence of a novel and find the resonances of the entire work.

a star dies in heaven every time you snatch away someone's dream.

Words themselves are innocuous; it is the consensus that gives them true power.

To realize the importance the imagination could have in friendship, to understand its immense power for bringing us together in a way.

The more I work with Nature and totemism, the more church is everywhere.

Every great writer is a great reader.

When you connect to a compelling cause you feel all your inner resources has been targeted to help you achieve your cause.

God, make me so uncomfortable that I will do the very thing I fear.

The federal debt in this country is principally of Republican design.

I think the damned souls in hell must spend half their time wondering what it was that they really meant to do.

I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubt, If one be better with them or without,-- Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed, Knows the high art of what and how to read.

If you're making a time capsule you have to throw my album in there.

I believe we all share a responsibility to build a healthier, more just and prosperous world.