“I'm used to very strong women because my mother was particularly strong, and my father was away all the time. My mother was a big part of bringing up three boys, so I was fully versed in the streng...”

“The ego is there, but I'm learning to channel it.”

“The word 'religion' is only a label. What lies behind that, the most important thing of all, is the word 'faith'. You either have faith, or you don't have faith, or you have degrees of faith - and ...”

“If you believe, you believe; if you're faithful, you're faithful. I don't care what your religion is. The same if you're agnostic. That should be accepted, too.”

“If you ever have a kid who doesn't know what to do, stick him in art school. It's amazing what evolves.”

“I was always amazed about how much I could finally squeeze into a thirty second commercial.”

“Like any stage of the hydrologic process, we have our own peculiarities, our organs making us nothing more than water pools or springs of bizarre shape, filled with pulsing tubes and chambers.”

“When the water is calm, take as much distance as possible with your boat!”

“The world beyond the water was a blue of green and stone and blue. A moment later Yoshi pushed through, the water pouring down in sheets so smooth it looked like glass, and stepped into the calm [p...”

“One time, when I was little more than a baby, I was taken to visit my grandmother, who was living in a cottage on a nearly uninhabited stretch of beach in northern Florida. All I remember of this v...”

“A baby is a beautiful, blooming, flower that can smile, sing, and dance.”

“A baby is a symbol of peace, a plot of dreams, a light of hope, and a bundle of joy.”

“A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.”

“Writing without revising is the literary equivalent of waltzing gaily out of the house in your underwear.”

“Anyone and everyone taking a writing class knows that the secret of good writing is to cut it back, pare it down, winnow, chop, hack, prune, and trim, remove every superfluous word, compress, compr...”