“War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.”

Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth.

You can not stop you from being who you are.

Whether you do something or decide to do nothing, either way, you are making a moral choice. And I hope people make the right one.

Life just doesn’t care about our aspirations, or sadness. It’s often random, and it’s often stupid and it’s often completely unexpected, and the closures and the epiphanies and revelations we end up receiving from life, begrudgingly, rarely turn out to be the ones we thought.

Yet love can move people to act in unexpected ways and move them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with startling heroism.

Her impulse, her need, to be the corrector of injustices, warden of the downtrodden flock.

It’s tremendous what can happen when suddenly you make an emotional connection.

And suddenly, just like that, hope became knowledge. I was going to win. It was just a matter of when.

She was the trembler of knees, the spiller of teacups.

There is only one sin. and that is theft. When you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth.

But it is important to know this, to know your roots. To know where you started as a person. If not, your own life seems unreal to you. Like a puzzle. Vous comprenez? Like you have missed the beginning of a story and now you are in the middle of it, trying to understand.

A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.

Boys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly.

True redemption is when guilt leads to good.

The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.

But then it passed, as all things do.

A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires

Justice demands integrity. It’s to have a moral universe – not only know what is right or wrong but to put things in perspective, weigh things. Justice is different from violence and retribution; it requires complex accounting.

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Don’t seek, don’t search, don’t ask, don’t knock, don’t demand – relax. If you relax it comes, if you relax it is there. If you relax, you start vibrating with it.

Don’t seek, don’t search, don’t ask, don’t knock, don’t demand – relax. If you relax it comes, if you relax it is there. If you relax, you start vibrating with it.

You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.

One of the most important things you can do to have your voice heard, get the leadership we demand and the justice we need, is to vote.