We all of us deserve happiness or none of us does.

Waiting is the great vocation of the dispossessed.

We all of us deserve happiness or none of us does.

One should never be sexually involved with anyone one genuinely cares for. A sexual relationship guarantees a loss.

'Catholic writer' seems like you have an agenda of evangelization, as if you were somehow influenced in your choice of perspective by dogma or canon law. That has nothing to do with me. I don't have a lot in common with other 'Catholic' writers.

Everything that turned out well for me seems like a fluke. I feel like, at any moment, I could lose everything and be working at Dunkin' Donuts.

Feminism is very much a part of a lot of my student's lives, but they're not going to march about it or take a public political stance. And I think more and more young women are claiming that they're not feminists - even though they are.

I believe that if your primary motivation in life is to be moral, you don't become an artist.

I could not write without my dog, Rhoda, a Lab-chow mix.

I don't have any great first job tales: I've never worked on a tramp steamer or in a coal mine or anything like that. I think the inspiration for my writing came largely from my father and the joy that life in books represented to me.

I love dancing; I adore salsa dancing and wish I could be in a Broadway chorus.

I think coldness is chic among writers, and particularly ironic coldness. What is absolutely not allowable is sadness. People will do anything rather than to acknowledge that they are sad.

I wasn't thinking about my pension plan until about two years ago. When I was in my twenties, the idea that you'd be thinking of taking a job based on its health-care policy was completely foreign. But these days young people are thinking about these things.

I would trade any writerly success if it would mean my children would be happy.

If the moral good of fiction stems mainly from a habit of mind it inculcates in the reader, styles are neither good nor bad, and to describe some fictional enterprises as false is pointless.

In my early life, I was a professional folk singer. I used to sing on the national television and radio in Canada. Nobody knows that - but now I've said it, haven't I? I'm strictly a shower singer at the minute.

It was actually a women's writing group I belonged to in graduate school that gave me the courage to move from poetry to fiction.

My father died when I was seven. I guess I am interested in fatherlessness as a metaphor for vulnerability and unprotectedness. Being on your own in the world in a way you're not quite ready for, ever.

My father's politics and ideas were, to me, unforgivable. He was a Jewish convert who became very anti-Semitic, and I didn't find the anti-Semitism forgivable.

My favorite dish is bibimbap, which is composed of various vegetables, steamed and pickled, and meat toppings over a bed of rice.

My life is so much better than I thought it was going to be.

My mother really loved me. And one of the gifts that I have been given is that I have never thought for one second of my life that I was not greatly beloved.

My weakness is 'American Idol.' My husband thinks it's ridiculous. But I am so inspired by those young people who are singing their guts out.

I always looked for a man to rescue me and bring me happiness. I bought into that myth, of course, and looked for my own Prince Charming.

Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.

No one is guaranteed happiness. You can pursue it, but if you happen to find success along the way on that road to happiness, Conservatives believe you should not be demonized or penalized for it.

To describe happiness is to diminish it.

All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.

So many people have said that to me, that what they really like about Alex is what she brings out in Marissa, and what this situation brings out in her, a hint of happiness and another side to her character.

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

To be able to throw one's self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman's smile - that is happiness.

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

Happiness seems made to be shared.

Aye, I'm tellin' ye, happiness is one of the few things in this world that doubles every time you share it with someone else.

Even when there are times that we're not happy, happiness will creep in.

Character is power; it makes friends, draws patronage and support and opens the way to wealth, honor and happiness.

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

Happiness, contentment, the health and growth of the soul, depend, as men have proved over and over again, upon some simple issue, some single turning of the soul.

Happiness is the real sense of fulfillment that comes from hard work.

The truth is that relative income is not directly related to happiness. Nonpartisan social-survey data clearly show that the big driver of happiness is earned success: a person's belief that he has created value in his life or the life of others.

Off with you! You're a happy fellow, for you'll give happiness and joy to many other people. There is nothing better or greater than that!

Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it.

Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination.

Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

I come before you to declare that my sex are entitled to the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

But if you believe in Christ and that your main goal with your life is supposed to be to honor Him and do His will, then you don't have as much pressure as someone who bases all their happiness on whether they're a movie star.

How can you tell somebody whose is pursuing happiness that they're somehow not American when that was the very first promise that America made?