"Architecture is a discourse; everything is a discourse. Fashion discourse is actually a micro-discourse, because it's centered around the body. It is the most rapidly developing form of discourse."

"Spiritual seekers let their light shine so that others may see; not only to give service by example, but also to constantly remind themselves that spirituality is most gloriously embodied in our actions, our habits of being."

"Do you know how big snakes get? Or how many grains of sand are in the deserts? Or what lurks at the bottoms of the oceans' floors?'...'No.'Well, if you can't answer those simple scientific queries, then what makes you think that mankind is smart enough to discover vampirekind's existence?"

"Teaching does allow me to keep one foot in the youthful waters I tend to occupy in my novels, so I'm thankful for that. My students also remind me on a daily basis that the stories I collected during my district attorney days are actually interesting to people who haven't had that experience."

"A building is no good if someone's got to explain to you why it's good. You can't say you don't know enough about architecture - that's ridiculous. It's got to work on many levels."

"Narrative understanding is a large part of the ability to connect with, understand, and have compassion for all of us engaged in learning more about being human."

"It is easy and dismally enervating to think of opposition as merely perverse or actually evil-far more invigorating to see it as essential for honing the mind and as a positive good in itself. For the day that moral issues cease to be fought over is the day the word 'human' disappears from the race."