It's interesting to leave a place, interesting even to think about it. Leaving reminds us of what we can part with and what we can't, then offers us something new to look forward to, to dream about.

There's a lot to be said for doing what you're not supposed to do, and the rewards of doing what you're supposed to do are more subtle and take longer to become apparent, which maybe makes it less attractive. But your life is the blueprint you make after the building is built.

It's interesting to leave a place, interesting even to think about it. Leaving reminds us of what we can part with and what we can't, then offers us something new to look forward to, to dream about.

Married life requires shared mystery even when all the facts are known.

Writing is the only thing I've ever done with persistence, except for being married.

Fear and hope are alike underneath.

America beats on you so hard the whole time. You are constantly being pummeled by other people's rights and their sense of patriotism.

Happiness for me is getting to write about the most important things I know.

I decided early on that I wanted to participate in the greater American experience, rather than the parochial one in Mississippi. But I have an urge as a writer to meld the Southern experience into the larger American one.

I don't hate children. My wife and I just didn't think we would be good parents, and also by the time we got married in 1968, we were pretty nose-down toward what we wanted to do, and having a child was going to be an excuse to fail.

I had a Tourette's period. And obsessive compulsive disorder. Things would get in my brain that I couldn't get out of my brain.

I have a theory... that someplace at the heart of most compelling stories is something that doesn't make sense.

I haven't scoured Dixie out of my voice. But I don't think that the books that I have written... have really in any way been Southern in character.

I think once you love somebody, you love somebody; that's just how it is.

I work really hard at these books, and when colleagues write nasty reviews of them, I take it very personally.

I've been mainly a happy boy in my life. I married the right girl and we did what we wanted to do.

In order to write novels for a living - it's not pathological, but I do think and worry and brood and fidget about stuff that I'm working on.

Literature has as one of its principal allures that it tells you something about life that life itself can't tell you. I just thought literature is a thing that human beings do.

My father died in my arms. That's tumult. That's everything exploding.

My job is to have empathy and curiosity for things that I've never done. Also, I'm a person whom people talk to.

Reading is probably what leads most writers to writing.

That said, being dyslexic, I wasn't a great reader when I was kid.

The art of living your life has a lot to do with getting over loss. The less the past haunts you, the better.

The ways in which things are superficially similar but also distinct is interesting to me.

Well, I believe in the idea of 'normal' in the way that I believe in the idea of logic. Or the idea of character. All of these ethical constructs are just that: constructs.

Writing never came naturally and I still have to force my hand to do it.

Your father has to die, better he dies in your arms.

She understood perfectly that when the object of anticipation becomes paramount, trouble begins to lurk like a panther.

We are past the end of things now, but I don't want to leave.

There are those, I know, who will reply that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is. It is the American Dream.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to make such a German film.

In fact I have nightmares about having children. I want to carry a baby and feel the life within me and in my dream, I do. But every time after it's born, there's this incredible fear, this pounding pulse of fear. It's a real bad nightmare.

I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses.

It's not the size of the dreamer, it's the size of the dream.

Christianity is a battle not a dream.

Lately, I can't shake the feeling that I've been living a dream for the last 10 years or so; I can't account for most of my 20s, and I have to continually remind myself that certain people are dead now and many of my friends have children.

If you stop and think about our history, one of the reasons we had an American century and there is an American dream was because at key points in our history we made very bold decisions about making sure that there was very broad, universal access to quality education.

My secret dream is to write an epic poem. That's probably the most pretentious thing I've said.

I have played for 15 years and it has been a dream.

I never dreamed about being an actor, because that was out of reach. Coming from a small town that was big in farming, and also big in clothing factories, you don't dream about being a professional football player or an actor.

It's been President Clinton's dream that we'll have finally a fully integrated Europe.

My dream is to save women from nature.

A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.

For the next century, the Republicans have agreed that we will promote the dignity and future of every individual by building a free society under a limited, accountable government that protects liberty, security and prosperity for a brighter American dream.

A novel usually takes me two years. A year to research and plan and dream. Then a year to write.

I had to do something special coming in. I didn't do it, so I had to do it in the playoff. Winning the Mercedes is awesome. Winning three times is a dream come true.

Love in marriage should be the accomplishment of a beautiful dream, and not, as it too often is, the end.

And you must dare to do as many things as you dream of.