The world is a very complex and interesting place and that is what I really want my fiction to say: wake up to how amazing the world is.
The recognition of pain and fear in others give rise in us to pity, and in our pity is our humanity, our redemption.
Perseverance is impossible if we don’t permit ourselves to hope.
Maybe the devil in human beings isn’t the reflection of the devil, perhaps the devil is only a reflection of the savagery and brutality of our kind. Maybe what we’ve done is create the devil in our own image.
No degree of prosperity can be sufficient to eliminate all misfortune, and sloth is impervious to opportunity.
Pain can be endured and defeated only if it is embraced. Denied or feared, it grows in perception if not in reality. The best response to terror is righteous anger, confidence in ultimate justice, a refusal to be intimidated.
I was looking forward to having a halo. It would make such a convenient reading lamp.
We are not born to wait. We are born to do.
Always, beneath every apparent chaos, order waits to be revealed.
Being polite is not only the right way to respond to people but also the easiest. Life is so filled with unavoidable conflict that I see no reason to promote more confrontations.
I survive by finding the sweet spot between reason and unreason, between the rational and irrational.
There is nothing fatherly about time and what it does to us, either.
If we were capable of thinking of everything, we would still be living in Eden, rent-free with all-you-can-eat buffets and infinitely better daytime TV programming.
Each book is a mind alive, a life revealed, a world awaiting exploration, but living people are all those things, as well – and more, because their stories haven’t yet been completely told.
You can con God and get away with it, Granny said, if you do so with charm and wit. If you live your life with imagination and verve, God will play along just to see what outrageously entertaining thing you’ll do next.
Evil was coming. I wondered whose face it would be wearing.
Most people tend to think the best of those who are blessed with beauty; we have difficulty imagining that physical perfection can conceal twisted emotions or a damaged mind.
I’ve a long list of things I don’t know how I’ve done, but I’ve done them. In the end, it’s always about perseverance.
The snow did not even whisper its way to earth, but seemed to salt the night with silence.
Every talent is unearned, however, and with it comes a solemn obligation to use it as fully and as wisely as possible.