The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed - it is a process of elimination.

Part of what motivated my writing was anger. I was angry that the daily misery of doctors, nurses, and patients was being trivialised into soap opera. We were made to feel bad because we were not perfect like our television counterparts. We were resentful that our patients did not get better as quickly as they did on telly - or at all.

There are so many amazing parts to life, so many amazing things to write about.

For a long time, it was like I was part of some special forces unit: I'd land, meet everyone, five minutes later I'd have to do some amazing work, then - boom! - I'm out again. You know, playing supporting parts takes courage.

Eric's Trip is still a huge influence on me. The style of those recordings and the rawness of them is very inspiring. And the density of the distorted parts, amazing.

When we would go to all these different regions on tour, having people sing our songs in Korean is amazing. All these different parts of the world are giving us love, and we're very grateful for that.

My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.

It's impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because of what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too many shapes which can never be fully described, too many flavors, in the air or on the tongue, half-colors, too many.

Some things are hard to write about. After something happens to you, you go to write it down, and either you over dramatize it, or underplay it, exaggerate the wrong parts or ignore the important ones. At any rate, you never write it quite the way you want to.

A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ? proof that humans can work magic.

What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.

A Fractal is a like a mathematical shape that is infinitely complex. In simple terms, it is a pattern that repeats forever. Every part of it, regardless of how it's zoomed, in or out its parts look similar to the whole.

Our heroes move with fractured parts and pieces, too, we just follow in collective awe as they bend and shape them into comely mosaics.

You can't be cooler than the corners where you source all your parts

Sometimes God calls us to help those we don't want to help so He can provide healing for the broken parts of us.

It's a strange but well-documented fact that the most extreme events and situations can bring out the deepest parts of ourselves.

Rock bottom is somewhere none of us ever want to be, but sometimes it happens. It's a place that, if we allow it, can destroy us. On the other hand, it can teach us about the deepest, darkest parts of ourselves for our ultimate growth.

Language imparts identity, meaning, and perspective to our human condition. Writers are either polluters or part of the cleanup.

The only parts that really matter and take commitment in wedding vows are; worse, sickness and poorer. Better, richer and healthy is pretty easy to deal with.

I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.

When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time-the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes-when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she's gone, forever-there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.

Poetry can unleash a terrible fear. I suppose it is the fear of possibilities, too many possibilities, each with its own endless set of variations. It's like looking too closely and too long into a mirror; soon your features distort, then erupt. You look too closely into your poems, or listen too closely to them as they arrive in whispers, and the features inside you - call it heart, call it mind, call it soul - accelerate out of control. They distort and they erupt, and it is one strange pain. You realize, then, that you can't attempt breaking down too many barriers in too short a time, because there are as many horrors waiting to get in at you as there are parts of yourself pushing to break out, and with the same, or more, fevered determination.

A "life of value," as I see it, has two parts: The first is about one fulfilling oneself and finding meaning by prioritizing, or living the values that they authentically possess. When one's life is consistent with what they truly value, then life just "feels right." But beyond a more self-oriented approach to finding happiness and fulfillment, a good life is making positive differences to those in the family, the community, the country, and the world.