I think living the blessed life is the luck of the draw.

You define a good flight by negatives: you didn’t get hijacked, you didn’t crash, you didn’t throw up, you weren’t late, you weren’t nauseated by the food. So you are grateful.

Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man.

Here is a test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: If you’re alive, it isn’t.

The character of Rosie is based on a woman who used to live in the same apartment building I lived in many years ago. She’s taken on a life of her own, of course.

Life is about learning; when you stop learning, you die.

I do not read the ancient languages, but I am beginning to study Greek.

People always call it luck when you’ve acted more sensibly than they have.

Time, in general, has always been a central obsession of mine – what it does to people, how it can constitute a plot all on its own. So naturally, I am interested in old age.

The really great writers are people like Emily Bronte who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination.

While it is well enough to leave footprints on the sands of time, it is even more important to make sure they point in a commendable direction.

Books that do a tenth of what Left Behind has done are smashing successes.

I was a Navy officer writing about Navy problems and I simply stole this lovely Army nurse and popped her into a Navy uniform, where she has done very well for herself.

Our house is made of glass… and our lives are made of glass; and there is nothing we can do to protect ourselves.

I taught more school, had two more sons and then in 1970 I wrote a short story and sent it to a national contest, where I won 60th prize out of 100.

Life is extremely complicated. I try as best I can to enter the realm of nuances of human behavior and alternatives of that behavior.

I want to be very close to someone I respect and admire and have somebody who feels the same way about me.

Power doesn’t corrupt people, people corrupt power.

Never ask what sort of computer a guy drives. If he’s a Mac user, he’ll tell you. If not, why embarrass him?

Nine out of 10 war victims die from a gun.

Obsession led me to write. It’s been that way with every book I’ve ever written. I become completely consumed by a theme, by characters, by a desire to meet a challenge.

I don’t want to say I hear voices; well, actually I do hear voices, but I don’t think it’s supernatural. I think it’s just that when characters are given enough texture and backbone, then lo...

What most men desire is a virgin who is a whore.

I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.

The New York Quarterly is an amazing, intelligent, crazy, creative, strange, and indispensable magazine.

I’ve written enough books with real celebrities, such as Walter Payton and Hank Aaron and Billy Graham, to know that fame looks good only to people who don’t have it.

Your memory is a monster; you forget – it doesn’t. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you – and summons them to your recall with a will...

Where we come from in America no longer signifies. It’s where we go, and what we do when we get there, that tells us who we are.

Knowledge is power. Your education is the most important thing you can do.

Explorers have to be ready to die lost.

If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.

I focus on the writing and let the rest of the process take care of itself. I’ve learned to trust my own instincts and I’ve also learned to take risks.

I’ve made up stuff that’s turned out to be real, that’s the spooky part.

Life is a great surprise. I don’t see why death should not be an even greater one.

I loved words. I love to sing them and speak them and even now, I must admit, I have fallen into the joy of writing them.

You can look at the New York Times Bestseller List and you can be pretty sure that the writers on that list don’t know each other very well.

I’ve always enjoyed studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level.

Nothing is more consuming, or more illogical, than the desire for remembrance.

What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It’s close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically.

In a memoir, I think, the contract implies a certain degree of truth. I think you have to be as true to your memory and your experience as you possibly can.

The uninitiated have real questions and valid concerns over how the things of God appear to them.

If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.

I’m glad I’m successful at it, because it’s allowed me to live very well financially, and give my kids a lot of things. It’s enabled me to do stuff that I otherwise wouldn’t be able...

Gain a modest reputation for being unreliable and you will never be asked to do a thing.

You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity.

Happiness is the reward we get for living to the highest right we know.

The truth is, I could no more dictate her nature than she could dictate mine. Kinsey’s happy as she is and she doesn’t need to be rescued, improved, or saved.

No matter what you or anyone else does, there will be someone who says that there’s something bad about it.

I gave up on the big screen. The Witching Hour was at Warner Bros. for 10 years and it just didn’t work out.

I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining it too closely.