“I wanted a Fakahatchee ghost orchid, in full bloom, maybe attached to a gnarled piece of custard apple tree, and I wanted its roots to spread as broad as my hand and each root to be only as wide as...”

“Sometimes I think I've figured out some order in the universe, but then I find myself in Florida, swamped by incongruity and paradox, and I have to start all over again.”

“Okay, fuck the sundial. We'll just go straight and eventually we'll get there. What I mean is that we'll get somewhere. Out of here. I mean, logically, we have to get out as long as we walk straigh...”

“You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.”

“I, too, had set out to be remembered. I had wanted to create something permanent in my life- some proof that everything in its way mattered, that working hard mattered, that feeling things mattered...”

“Television wasn't getting rid of animals, but they were no longer cast as creatures that were omniscient and heroic. They were talking horses like Mr Ed or an absurdist pig like Arnold Ziffle...Jus...”

“Giving kids whatever they ask for is disastrous parenting. There's no sense of something earned. I'm sorry, but when you're 12, you don't need a new cell phone every few months just because a new o...”

“It's sad that the cell phone is replacing the watch as a time-telling device. I wear a vintage watch that's really skinny.”

“You want to see an angry person? Let me hear a cell phone go off.”

“To withhold words is power. But to share our words with others, openly and honestly, is also power.”

“You have to follow your own voice. You have to be yourself when you write. In effect, you have to announce, 'This is me, this is what I stand for, this is what you get when you read me. I'm doing t...”

“...if you want your own distinctive voice, you first have to become someone...”

“Behind every Plagiarism there is Google”

“My job as a leader is to make sure everybody in the company has great opportunities, and that they feel they're having a meaningful impact and are contributing to the good of society. As a world, w...”

“I killed the Google Alert I used to have on myself two years ago. I dont need any more information about myself. I get more than enough of that just by being me.”