"We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it's all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed."

"But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it's all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed."

"Fiction is the truth inside the lie."

"I was in enough to get along with people. I was never socially inarticulate. Not a loner. And that saved my life, saved my sanity. That and the writing. But to this day I distrust anybody who thought school was a good time. Anybody."

"A humble soul understands that the bonds of friendship are the true treasures of existence."

"It is a subtle truth that an hour spent in deep contemplation is worth a year of unguided wandering — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all."

"Being is the great explainer."