“The cracks in old friendships are measured in awkward pauses.”

“The starkest rejection letter might be followed by a million-dollar advance. Don't let rejection start to look the same as failure.”

“All writers have their own pet commandments.”

“I spent three and a half years writing the novel 'Chang & Eng,' about the conjoined brothers for whom the term 'Siamese twins' was contrived, and when I think of these afflicted people, my only emo...”

“The main thing is to think strategically about what will engage your readers. Trust me when I tell you that few people are eager to read a story whose opening lines sound like a dissertation on gia...”

“After a life deprived of everything from romantic love to the choice of when to wake up in the morning, after 29 years without the ability to have a career or even to be alone at toilet, the Bijani...”

“Our incredible bewilderment (wilderness separation) blinds us from seeing that our many personal and global problems primarily result from our assault of and separation from the natural creation pr...”

“Sorry is the day, and full of lament, when the young have to guard themselves from being food for the old.I am moved to bewilderment, when I glance my eyes upon a society that kills its young, and ...”

“With the sensation that he was passing through the Looking-Glass, Max stared at his father as if he had never seen him beforesimultaneously impressed and unnerved at the thought that, after all the...”

“Question everythingno matter how beloved, or how long-held, or how exaltedwithout apology. Only those who build their world upon lies need fear an inquisitive mind. The truth will remain, even afte...”

“We need not take refuge in supernatural gods to explain our saints and sages and heroes and statesmen, as if to explain our disbelief that mere unaided human beings could be that good or wise.”

“I would like to believe in the myth that we grow wiser with age. In a sense my disbelief is wisdom. Those of a middle generation, if charitable or sentimental, subscribe to the wisdom myth, while t...”

“We are on strike, we, the men of the mind.We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma ...”

“If only it were possible to love without injury fidelity isnt enough: I had been faithful to Anne and yet I had injured her. The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body...”

“She looks at the swings, and I can see shes imagining what theyd look like if the kids werent there. The guilt of this holds her down momentarily. It appears to be there constantly. Never far away,...”