Despite the ills of our society, we largely live among compassionate, kind and optimistic people who are striving to do good. [...] Learn how to be happy and keep this in mind: You can't be happy unless you stop being afraid.

Writer's block to me is where you stop because you're afraid to go forward because you're not sure of what really should be happening next and you think, my gosh, if I choose this... you've got a hundred millions of avenues you could possibly go down but it's all an assess of characters.

Becoming a writer can kind of spoil your reading because you kind of read on tracks. You're reading as someone who wants to enjoy the book but also, as a writer, noticing the techniques that the writer uses and especially the ones that make you want to turn the page to see what happened.

A rocket won't fly unless somebody lights the fuse!

I have never been able to understand anyone on this planet who lacks a need for knowledge. Is it not God's greatest gift to us all, this capacity to think, to wonder, to imagine?

A man can't hit a woman and stay a man. He becomes a loathsome thing, even to himself. But the woman who stays with such a man panders to his darkness. They both risk their souls.

A lot of folks just get it in their head that, for instance, like writing memoirs is just easy. You just write down what happened. It doesn't quite work that way.

I had discovered that learning something, no matter how complex, wasn't hard when I had a reason to want to know it.

It is better to confess ignorance than provide it.

Always I try to write about people. People are interested in other people always.

I didn’t care…about heroes who could read minds or walk through walls or do magic. The heroes I liked had courage and knew more real stuff than those who opposed them.

There are two things every woman really wants: one, she wants to know that a man really loves her, and two, that he isn't going to stop.