It is the job of the dog trainer to summon the dog's genetics, not to impose man's will over dog's.

The events of the Civil War are so odd, ferocious, and poignant that fictional characters do well simply to inhabit them.

I had been saying to myself for a good many years that I was really a writer and that I was in advertising temporarily.

I'm a workaday writer.

I'm always praying for a part that would be something that I could be really proud of, in which I could use the gifts God gave me in a positive way.

I wanted to be a teacher. I love children, so I wanted to deal with children. Then I wanted to be a veterinarian. But by the age of ten or eleven, when I opened my mouth and said, 'Oh, God, what's this?' I kind of knew teaching and being a veterinarian were gonna have to wait.

God never made His work for man to mend.

From a very young age, I would fall off the bed and wake up on the floor because of dreams. I have a memory from the age of four in which I felt God.