I did something good for you just now. Before the sun goes down tonight, I want you to pass it on

When you get old, peace is about all you want.

Life could sometimes be grand.

I like to hang out clothes on windy days. Sometimes that's all I feel like. A sheet on a line.

Relief loosens tongues beyond measure.

The shining. It was a good name, a comforting name, because she had always thought of it as a dark thing

It was how wars really ended, Dieffenbaker supposed -- not at truce tables but in cancer wards and office cafeterias and traffic jams. Wars died one tiny piece at a time, each piece something that fell like a memory, each lost like an echo that fades in winding hills. In the end even war ran up the white flag. Or so he hoped. He hoped that in the end even war surrendered

You could start at a path leading nowhere more fantastic than from your own front steps to the sidewalk, and from there you could go… well, anywhere at all.

Because things can get better, and if you give them a chance, they usually do

Laughter, Susannah would later reflect, is like a hurricane: once it reaches a certain point, it becomes self-feeding, self-supporting. You laugh not because the jokes are funny but because your own condition is funny.

Memory is the basis of every journey.

A person can go along quite awhile if they get a good day every once and again.

The thought process can never be complete without articulation.

There may be fairies, there may be elves, but God helps those who help themselves

The goodbyes we speak and the goodbyes we hear are the good byes that tell us we're still alive

Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure

Faith is a great thing, and really religious people would like us to believe that faith and knowing are the same thing, but I don't believe that myself. Because there are too many different ideas on the subject. What we know is this: When we die, one of two things happens. Either our souls and thoughts somehow survive the experience of dying or they don't. If they do, that opens up every possibility you could think of. If they don't, it's just blotto. The end

Oh shit, the mummy's after us, let's all walk a little faster

If you've ever been homesick, or felt exiled from all the things and people that once defined you, you'll know how important welcoming words and friendly smiles can be.

I am always chilled and astonished by the would-be writers who ask me for advice and admit, quite blithely, that they "don't have time to read." This is like a guy starting up Mount Everest saying that he didn't have time to buy any rope or pitons.

Your first impulse is to share good news, your second is to club someone with it

People don't get better, they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don't stop pulling the wings off flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it

It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright

Humor is almost always anger with its make-up on