-
What I'm always trying to do with every book is to recreate the effect of the stories we heard as children in front of campfires and fireplaces - the ghost stories that engaged us.
-
I don't know where to start," one [writing student] will wail. Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Flannery O' Connor said that anyone who has survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life. Maybe your childhood was grim and horrible, but grim and horrible is Okay if it is well done. Don't worry about doing it well yet, though. Just get it down.
-
You do not become a real pro in your field by doing certain things - you become a pro in your field by doing things in a certain way.
-
Energy is necessary for economic growth, for a better quality of life, and for human progress.
-
The federal investment in finding cures for cancer - $3 billion annually [as of 1999] - is less than ... zero ... point ... zero ... zero ... zero ... four ... percent of our gross domestic product, or about one-seventh of what Americans spend on beauty products.
-
Advertising is a symbol-manipulating occupation
-
There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.
-
You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree.
-
Everyone takes pause at 40. It's the age you have to assess everything in your life. It's the fictitious marker that's always coming up when you're young. The world really does look at you to kind of have it together by 40, and be successful by 40. Whatever success means.
-
Your walk with God does not depend on people, places, things or events.
