I never planned on doing a book about Paul Farmer or his organization. I met him in Haiti when I was on a magazine assignment. It's almost like his story sort of fell in my lap.

I always want to write something better than the last book.

I think if the writing comes too easily, it shows - it's usually hard to read.

Paul Farmer has helped to build amazing health care system in one of the poorest areas of Haiti. He founded Partners in Health, which serves the destitute and the sick in many parts of the world from Haiti to Boston and from Russia to Peru.

Things were here before you and will be here after you're gone. The geographic features, especially, give you a sense of your own place in the world and in time.

I tell beginning readers to read a lot and write a lot. If you want to write a book, find a subject that's really worth the time and effort you'll put in.

I want my prose to be as clear as a pane of glass.

I know that to write you have to have stories you want to tell. You have to keep your mind alive, and you have to work hard.

Continuity is one of the things I like about New England.

If you had an essentially happy childhood, that tends to dwell with you.

If you live in the same small place long enough, something you don't like is bound to happen.

I never planned on doing a book about Paul Farmer or his organization. I met him in Haiti when I was on a magazine assignment. It's almost like his story sort of fell in my lap.

People say you can't teach writing, but I think that's nonsense.

In a very basic way, a prominent landmark such as Mt. Holyoke tells you where you are. They let you know that you're not the first person in a place.

What I like about non-fiction is that it covers such a huge territory. The best non-fiction is also creative.

The combination of domesticity and wildness - that's a deep expression.

I wrote a novel about the combat experiences I didn't have in Vietnam.

When I select a topic, it's usually a commitment of two to three years of my life.

At first, I spend about four hours a day writing. Toward the end of a book, I spend up to 16 hours a day on it, because all I want to do is make it good and get it done.

I usually write about ordinary people and ordinary things, but Paul Farmer is the least ordinary person I've ever met... He's the leader of a small group of people who hope to cure a sick world, and I hope my book can help in some small way.

You do the right thing even if it makes you feel bad. The purpose of life is not to be happy but to be worthy of happiness.

What interests me is trying to catch the reflection of the human being on the page. I'm interested in how ordinary people live their lives.

Being a professional writer is not an easy way to make a living.

The hardest thing was learning to write. I was 13, and the only writing I had done was for Social Studies. It consisted of copying passages right out of the encyclopedia.

I do believe that enduring geological features are important, though I don't think I can be clear about exactly why.

Writing is revision. All prose responds to work.

Don't worry about being worried. You're heading out on an adventure and you can always change your mind along the way and try something else.

I've got Republican fans. Republicans like the Black Eyed Peas.

I know many Catholics love God with all their heart. I have genuine respect for anyone who truly has given their life to Christ. We read about Mother Teresa and what a wonderful example she was.

The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you're not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one.

We didn't rehearse or play the songs to death before we recorded them, and that let us catch a freshness and energy level we've never really felt while making records.

This battle for global talent is so important.

Strength is born in the deep silence of long-suffering hearts; not amid joy.

The reality is I have a closet full of shoes that I don't wear because they are not comfortable, and I am not going to be hobbling between meetings. There's nothing that ruins an entrance like somebody who's uncomfortable in their shoes.

But I also enjoy life... the more scrutiny I am under, the more confident I become. I am who I am. I can't do anything about it, and I love who I am.

The further you go in life, the more you realize what you're going to leave this Earth. It's not going to be, 'It was a great platform. It was great to win the Super Bowl,' but really and truly what you're going to leave on this Earth is the influence on others.

I feel sometimes like a book tour is a slow series of humiliations and that if you're strong you'll come out of it OK.

You grow up the day you have your first real laugh at yourself.

In a normal movie, the director controls what you look at. The shots don't last very long because you're getting the audience to look at specific things. An IMAX shot, on the other hand, can be twenty or thirty seconds long.

Writers sometimes give up what is most strange and wonderful about their writing - soften their roughest edges - to accommodate themselves toward a group response.

Having a child is arguably the most important thing you do in life.

I'm not dreaming of any podiums or any medals that I can put around my neck. I'm just focusing on what I need to do today in order to be better tomorrow.

I am utterly, consummately intense, wearing sunflowers and poppies and dahlias in my buttonhole.

I don't want to spend my life in my 40s feeling bad about being in my 40s, and then all of a sudden I'm 50, and I will have missed a whole decade!

As a former Catholic, and as someone who even today is not opposed to being called a Christian, I felt I had every right to use the symbols of the Church and resented being told not to.

Its very dependent on your state of mind. And your emotional state as well. And a lot of it comes pouring out you dont really have that much control with it.

Women are just much better at getting degrees than men. It seems that school at every level plays to the natural strengths of women more than it does to men.

Men are perfectly willing to abandon a woman but they refuse to be abandoned by her.

Our lives feel like these epochs, but really, we are dust in the wind.