The nature of impending fatherhood is that you are doing something that you're unqualified to do, and then you become qualified while doing it.
Life is like a bowl of spaghetti. Every once in a while, you get a meatball.
What I have since realized is that if people expect you to be brave, sometimes you pretend that you are, even when you are frightened down to your very bones.
You can't keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.
I love the way that each book -- any book -- is its own journey. You open it, and off you go. You are changed in some way, large or small, by having traveled with those characters.
Sometimes you know in your heart you love someone, but you have to go away before your head can figure it out.
Then I thought, boy, isn't that just typical? You wait and wait and wait for something, and then when it happens, you feel sad.
If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.
Remorse is impotence, impotence which sins again. Repentance alone is powerful; it ends all.
If your life turns out to be good and you have a tremendous amount of luck in your life, it's a good thing to turn around and make it work for others.
In journalism just one fact that is false prejudices the entire work. In contrast, in fiction one single fact that is true gives legitimacy to the entire work. That's the only difference, and it lies in the commitment of the writer. A novelist can do anything he wants so long as he makes people believe in it.