The Nobel Prize is the best thing that can happen to a writer in terms of how it affects your contracts, the publishers, and the seriousness with which your work is taken. On the other hand, it does interfere with your private life, or it can if you ...
No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellow man. Service to others is akin to duty, the fulfillment of which brings true joy. We do not live alone - in our city, our nation, or our world. The...
I am a strong individual that may seem weak; but, my strength is in my ability to stay in the fight and sure my enemies that I can take the punches; and, still stay strong in my weakness. Because within time God will turn my weak persona to my streng...
I would probably have to say that reading fiction — those stories fill the space that other people might use religious stories for. The bulk of what I know about human life I’ve gotten from novels. And I think the thing about novels that make the...
If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begun upon this downward path, you never k...
Sounds travel through space long after their wave patterns have ceased to be detectable by the human ear: some cut right through the ionosphere and barrel on out into the cosmic heartland, while others bounce around, eventually being absorbed into th...
Don’t you find it striking? The personality is constantly dying and it feels like continuity. Meanwhile, we panic about death, which we cannot ever experience. Yet it is this illogical fear that motivates our lives. We gore each other and mutilate ...
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves t...
Love ENDURES and works out ways of enduring the other stuff. As long as you can communicate you can work out issues, but good communication seems to be one of the weakest skills in human beings, so don't be afraid to try and try different ways of com...
Do you wake up as I do, having forgotten what it is that hurts or where, until you move? There is a second of consciousness that is clean again. A second that is you, without memory or experience, the animal warm and waking into a brand new world. Th...
Cram your head with characters and stories. Abuse your library privileges. Never stop looking at the world, and never stop reading to find out what sense other people have made of it. If people give you a hard time and tell you to get your nose out o...
Real connection (and if it's LOVE, then real love)--goes beyond those not-so-perfect and superficial and idiosyncratic things that simply make us individuals. The trust and longevity of a relationship between two individuals is established through ti...
Instead of saying that all gender is this or all gender id that, let's recognize that the word gender has scores of meanings built into it. It's an amalgamation of bodies, identities, and life experiences, subconscious urges, sensations, and behaviou...
I have to admit I wasn't to keen on this idea when you first told me you were going out at midnight to see him, but I guess maybe I was wrong... Have you guys? God, Karen. I rolled my eyes. Oh well, let's not hope that's not the killer in the relatio...
In the woods lay a bleeding angel in all her glory. Her arms posed gracefully above her head and her hair soaked in the mud, the blood and feces in which she lay. Dying, fading into the other realm, her form christened by the rain as though the trees...
If you don't have a well-thought out dream, you can start by figuring out where you want to go. If you cannot see yourself fairly or accurately represented in the community you live (from restaurants to department stores to clothing choices to conver...
Life is short but it's a beautiful journey. During my life so many people wanted to use me and abuse me for their personal gain. I tried to please everyone, keep the peace and keep everyone happy. I've lived and learned! I'm not responsible for the h...
Love doesn’t die with death. Love is like liquid; when it pours out, it seeps into others’ lives. Love changes form and shape. Love gets into everything. Death doesn’t conquer all; love does. Love wins every single time. Love wins by lasting th...
All of us can think of a book... that we hope none of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf - that work I abhor - then you also have exactly the same right and so does ...
I saw someone the other day with yellow on their eyelids, and it looked so fresh. But I thought if I did that I'd look like a clown. So I went and I bought some yellow eye shadow from M.A.C. and I noticed that when you mix it with water it works bett...
Moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other...
