“A writer lives in awe of words, for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. They pick up flavors and odors like butter in a refrigerator.”

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

All great and precious things are lonely.

Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.

Only through immitation do we develop toward originality.

To be alive at all is to have scars.

Ah, the prayers of the millions, how they must fight and destroy each other on their way to the throne of God.

It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.

All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.

I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen.

Time is the only critic without ambition.

When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you’ve got two new people.

The nicest thing in the world you can do for anybody is let them help you.

And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.

Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk.

To finish is sadness to a writer — a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn’t really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done.

Illusions can be changed.

Meeting you was life-changing so was losing you.

Everything passes, Everything changes, Just do what you think you should do.

Women speaking up for themselves and for those around them is the strongest force we have to change the world.

In the end, it’s the people who are curious who change the world.

Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.

If people are looking for someone who has never changed their mind and is unwilling to admit they make mistakes, that’s not me.

You don’t want to raise a kid in a culture where the kid who asks the most questions is annoying. You want a culture where the kid who asks the most questions gets awards and gets another piece of cake.