Fate! There is no fate. Between the thought and the success God is the only agent. Fate is not the ruler, but the servant of Providence.
But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life’s business.
Very few of my characters are based on people I've known. It is too constricting.
Well, to be honest I think I tell less truth when I write journalism than when I write fiction.
Well, they each seem to do one thing well enough, but fail to realize that literature depends on doing several things well at the same time.
Grief reconfigures time, its length, its texture, its function: one day means no more than the next, so why have they been picked out and given separate names?
And that was all the part of it - the way you were obliged to live. You stifled a groan, you lied about your love, you deceived your legal wife, and all in the name of honour. That was the damned paradox of it - in order to behave well, you have to behave badly.
Prayer enables you to tap into God's wisdom anywhere, anytime, no matter what's going on.
Madame, it is an old word and each one takes it new and wears it out himself. It is a word that fills with meaning as a bladder with air and the meaning goes out of it as quickly. It may be punctured as a bladder is punctured and patched and blown up again and if you have not had it does not exist for you. All people talk of it, but those who have had it are marked by it, and I would not wish to speak of it further since of all things it is the most ridiculous to talk of and only fools go through it many times.
. . . we all want to hear stories, from the moment we are born to the moment we die. Stories connect our little lives with the world around us and help us discover who we are.
Desperation can make a person do surprising things.