“When you want to encourage a greater sense of responsibility in others (and yourself), emphasize the anticipation of accomplishment, not the penalties for failure.”

“You can t coast uphill.”

“Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.”

“So I think when you tap into something that you really want to do, you have to fight for it, even if the fight is with yourself.”

“You need that pride in yourself, as well as a sense, when you are sitting on Page 297 of a book, that the book is going to be read, that somebody is going to care. You can't ever be sure about that, but you need the sense that it's important, that it's not typing; it's writing.”

“To dream a garden and then to plant it is an act of independence and even defiance to the greater world.”

“Nicholas Sparks recently went on record as saying he is a greater novelist than Cormac McCarthy. This is true in the same sense that I am a better novelist than William Shakespeare.”