Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found.

Love is the grand prize and the garbage heap. Love is a spiritual root canal and the only thing that makes life worth living. Love is a little taste of always and a big bite of nothing. And love is everything in between these extremes.

Life-and-death. Lifedeath. One event. One short event. Don’t forget.

Everyone has doors in the living room of their lives that they assume are locked. Doors that lead to artistic expression. People say “I have no talent – I can’t dance or sing or paint or write poetry or play an instrument.” More often than not the doors are not locked, just closed. One may turn the handle, open the door and pass through into a larger life space.

I keep sputtering out at intersections where life choices must be made and I either know too much or not enough. The examined life is no picnic.

The older I get, the more I realize the importance of exercising the various dimensions of my body, soul, mind and heart. Taken together, these aspects give me a sense of wholeness. I want to be a whole human being rather than one who limps on one leg because I don't know how to use all of my parts. Intellectual, emotional, and physical activity are not separate entities. Rather, they are dimensions of the same human being.

If I don't have time to live my life well the first time, when am I going to find the time to go back and live it over?

When you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air - explode softly - and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth - boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either - not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.

All of my books have had considerable success in the Czech Republic. I usually add that it must be that my editor and translator are much better writers than I am, but I’ll never really know because I don’t speak Czech.

I think, likewise, that some sense of being successful lies in knowing what scale you work best in. I give some examples: an astronomer is one whose mind can work on a cosmic scale. A physicist is one whose mind can handle the quantum scale. A theologian the metaphysical scale. A psychiatrist works with the deep picture and on and on and on. I think many people die confused and unfulfilled, because they spend a life trying to perform above or even below their abilities and perspective. They are in the wrong scale.

I did not set out to be a writer. It's something that came to me after I was 50 years of age. And I already had the life that I wanted and the wife I wanted and at that age I was fairly clear about what was important. The success that my writing is enjoying is like finding out your rich uncle has left you a train full of hammers. I mean, how many hammers can you use? It's chocolate syrup. It's an extra. So I take it very lightly. And if I were to fall off the charts tomorrow, I've already had more fame than I deserve and more money than I've ever had in my life. The thought that I could finally pay off my Visa bill! That's rich.

Rubber gloves are for sissies.

I'm a storyteller – one who conveys the truth he sees in the same spirit employed by a poet or comedian or songwriter. This is true for all of us – in the way we give an account of what we saw or did on a given day. I personally don't worry about the categories, but these thoughts come to mind: What I write is always somewhere between investigative journalism and myth.

We're all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.

One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience.

Remember the Dick and Jane books and the first word you learned — the biggest word of all — LOOK.

Dirt and mess are a breeding ground for well-being.

Whenever I speak in public I take photographs of the audience, print them up and look at them carefully. I want to see demographics – age, sex, etc. – but also create a mental image in my mind of those I write to. I've always had a quarrel with my editors and publishers over this. They talk about my readers as if they know – but they don't – they haven't been to see them – I have.

I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have - I can reflect light into the dark places of this world - into the black places in the hearts of men.

Above all, if what you've done is stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid.

We've associated that word philosophy with academic study that in its own way has gotten so far beyond the layman that if you read contemporary philosophy you've no clue, because it's almost become math. And it's odd that if you don't do that and you call yourself a philosopher that you always get 'homespun' attached to it.

I will tell you a secret: If you do not join the dance, we will know you are a fool. But if you dance, we will think well of you for trying. If you dance badly to begin and we laugh, what is the sin in that? We will begin there.

Some assembly is always required.

If you want an interesting adult party sometime, combine cocktails and a fresh box of Crayolas.

One of the very few reasons I had any respect for my mother when I was thirteen was because she would reach into the sink with her bare hands - bare hands - and pick up that lethal gunk and drop it into the garbage. To top that, I saw her reach into the wet garbage bag and fish around in there looking for a lost teaspoon. Bare hands - a kind of mad courage.

Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in a breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference.