She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket....

An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.

Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say.

Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.

Young women from a very young age are taught that life will be easier if you can just turn on the charming smile and say very little and be complacent and docile and sweet.

It is spectacular. From about five minutes in, when we knew for sure that we were going to have the weather to go, the smile on my face just got bigger and bigger, and I was just beaming through the whole launch. I mean, it is just an amazing ride.

Religion can emerge in all forms of feeling: here wild anger, there the sweetest pain here consuming hatred, there the childlike smile of serene humility.

Smiles come naturally to me, but I started thinking of them as an art form at my command. I studied all the time. I looked at magazines, I'd practice in front of the mirror and I'd ask photographers about the best angles. I can now pull out a smile at will.