I would always be a better hater of things and institutions than a lover of them.

Cameras are a lifesaver for very shy people who have nowhere else to hide. Behind a lens they can disguise the fact that they have nothing to say to strangers.

Time moves funny and it's hard to pin down. Occasionally, time offers you a hundred opportunities to do the right thing. Sometimes, it gives you only one chance.

...I realize words are never enough; they stutter and cleave to the roof of my mouth.

The fruit tasted foreign but indigenous, like sunlight a tree had changed through patience.

You do not learn how to write novels in a writing program. You learn how by leading an interesting life. Open yourself up to all experience. Let life pour through you the way light pours through leaves.

My mother's voice and my father's fists are two bookends of my childhood, and they form the basis of my art.

I was trying to unravel the complicated trigonometry of the radical thought that silence could make up the greatest lie ever told.

Losing prepares you for the heartbreak, setback, and the tragedy that you will encounter in the world more than winning ever can. By licking your wounds you learn how to avoid getting wounded the next time.

Except for memory, time would have no meaning at all.

A story is a living thing, it moves and shifts...

The English language on her tongue became a smoke-screen, without her eyes changing expression in the least.

I was the only person in the world who thought it was a military duty to appear to be in a good mood.

She had so mastered the strategies of camouflage that her own history had seemed a series of well-placed mirrors that kept her hidden from herself.

We've pretended too much in our family, Luke, and hidden far too much. I think we're all going to pay a high price for our inability to face the truth.

Love's action. It isn't talk and it never has been.

Evil would always come to me disguised in systems and dignified by law.

My soul found ease and rest in the companionship of books.

Honor is the presence of God in man.

Like everything else, love's not worth much without some action to back it up.

I lived with the terrible knowledge that one day I would be an old man still waiting for my real life to start. Already, I pitied that old man.

In families, there are no crimes beyond forgiveness.

I had come to a place where I was meant to be. I don't mean anything so prosaic as a sense of coming home. This was different, very different. It was like arriving at a place much safer than home.

Know this. I think you could be special if you only thought there was anything special about yourself.