"All novelists I speak to about how they started usually say it was by pulling up their roots and going to live somewhere else. You see the shape of your life at a distance."

"The flash of rain, the shining rainbow riding completely around the plane, the lift over mountain ridges, the steady, pure air at dawn take-offs. ... It was so alive and rich a life that any other conceivable choice seemed dull, prosaic, and humdrum."

"Praise behaviour that you want repeated"

"If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you'll die a lot of times."

"....get a move on, pal, life goes on happening while you're hiding...."

"I do think you are supposed to go through wars with your child because otherwise the tearing apart that has to happen when they go off to lead their own life would be unbearable."

"I've chosen to stay in a jolly place for most of my life, and that is a lot of who I am."

"It was my father who taught me to value myself. He told me that I was uncommonly beautiful and that I was the most precious thing in his life."

"I'm constantly astounded by how amazing women are. And as we go through all these different stages of life as long as you share them with others and say, 'Well, this is bloody weird', you can get through everything."

"I am not, I repeat, NOT a lesbian - even though I'd like to be one when I grow up."

"In actual life I am a grumpy old bag."

"It's unrealistic to live your life within such strict parameters."

"My feet are completely flat, but for most of my life they were still shaped like feet. Now, thanks to bunions, they're shaped more like states, wide boring ones that nobody wants to drive through."

"My first semester I had only nine students. Hoping they might view me as professional and well prepared, I arrived bearing name tags fashioned in the shape of maple leaves."

"I can't promise I'll never kill anyone again," he once said, strapping a refrigerator to his back. "It's unrealistic to live your life within such strict parameters"

"Given enough time, I guess anything can look good. All it has to do is survive."

"He looked as though his life had not only passed him by but paused along the way to spit in his face."

"Think too much and you know you are nothing. Think just enough and you know you are small, but important to some. That's the best you can do."

"There is no going back in life. There is no return. No second chance."

"Life comes at us in waves. We can't predict or control those waves, but we can learn to surf"

"Before you can see the Light, you have to deal with the darkness."

"Unless someone truly has the power to say no, they never truly have the power to say yes"

"Live in the Moment", "Empty Your Mind of the Trash" Wisdom is the Use of Knowledge"

"The warrior is Here, Now."