We come from people who brought us up to believe that life is a struggle, and if you should feel really happy, be patient: this will pass.
Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more remote places.
A book is a gift you can open again and again.
Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted.
When you wage war on the public schools, you’re attacking the mortar that holds the community together. You’re not a conservative, you’re a vandal.
When writing loses touch with the beautiful surface of the world, it loses its way. You always want to be in touch with how things look and what people say and what they call their dogs.
I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.
A young writer is easily tempted by the allusive and ethereal and ironic and reflective, but the declarative is at the bottom of most good writing.
I think if the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does on lust, this would be a better world for all of us.
Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.
You’d learn more about the world by lying on the couch and drinking gin out of a bottle than by watching the news.
No matter what time of year I come here, people always say the same thing: Its not usually like this.
Humor is not a trick, not jokes. Humor is a presence in the world – like grace – and shines on everybody.
The highlight of my childhood was making my brother laugh so hard that food came out of his nose.
One reads books in order to gain the privilege of living more than one life. People who don’t read are trapped in a mine shaft, even if they think the sun is shining.
Thank you, dear God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough. Thank you for the rain. And for the chance to wake up in three hours and go fishing: I thank you for that now, because I won’t feel so thankful then.
A girl in a bikini is like having a loaded pistol on your coffee table – There’s nothing wrong with them, but it’s hard to stop thinking about it.
Don’t tear up the page and start over again when you write a bad line-try to write your way out of it. Make mistakes and plunge on. Writing is a means of discovery, always.
It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn’t hear the barbarians coming.
Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.