I was brought up in a very open rural countryside in the middle of nowhere. There were no cell phones. If your lights went out you were lit by candlelight for a good four days before they can get to you. And so my imagination was crazy.

Reading a hard copy book and reading a book on an iPad are slightly different experiences. What they both have in common though is that you must engage your imagination in the process.

While F.D.R. once told Americans that we have nothing to fear but fear itself Mr. Ashcroft is delighted to play the part of Fear Itself an assignment in which he lets his imagination run riot.

Poetry is that art which selects and arranges the symbols of thought in such a manner as to excite the imagination the most powerfully and delightfully.

Today mythical thinking has fallen into disrepute we often dismiss it as irrational and self-indulgent. But the imagination is also the faculty that has enabled scientists to bring new knowledge to light and to invent technology that has made us immeasurably more effective.

I'm a light sleeper. I've never been one of those people who can put their head down and suddenly everything disappears. Nighttime is the time I get most scared anxious or worried. In those darker moments before waking or sleeping is when I feel most I don't know I can turn on myself and my imagination can take me dark places.

We say God and the imagination are one... How high that highest candle lights the dark.

Imagination the supreme delight of the immortal and the immature should be limited. In order to enjoy life we should not enjoy it too much.

It's a slight stretch of the imagination but most people are alike in most ways so I've never had any trouble identifying with the character that I'm playing.

The imagination is the spur of delights... all depends upon it it is the mainspring of everything now is it not by means of the imagination one knows joy? Is it not of the imagination that the sharpest pleasures arise?

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe wings to the mind flight to the imagination and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

While many of us never knew Ronald Reagan personally we felt close to him because we shared his lighthearted sense of humor admired his uncommon virtue and were moved by his remarkable wisdom.

I was a product of a divorced family and I used humor as a weapon to combat sadness. I used comedy to make my mother laugh in light of the darkness that she faced and to me it became a very powerful tool at a very young age at six. I saw how therapeutic it could be.

My humor tends to be a little more edgy than is appropriate for 'Twilight ' although I got some in there. That was fun! There's just a tonal difference. For me storytelling is storytelling. But I do like writing for grown ups.

If one tends to be a humorous person and you have a sense of humor the rest of your life then you can certainly lighten the load I think by bringing that to your trials and tribulations. It's easy to have a sense of humor when everything is going well.

It's your outlook on life that counts. If you take yourself lightly and don't take yourself too seriously pretty soon you can find the humor in our everyday lives. And sometimes it can be a lifesaver.

When they see those fourteen lights they're looking at a miracle. And deep down they feel that whatever's going to happen there will be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope.

Wherever my story takes me however dark and difficult the theme there is always some hope and redemption not because readers like happy endings but because I am an optimist at heart. I know the sun will rise in the morning that there is a light at the end of every tunnel.

Flying back from New York the flight attendant said 'God I wished you were here yesterday we had a stroke on the plane. I said if I have a stroke on a plane I hope the pretend doctor isn't the one on the plane. I want a real doctor.

One of the principal goals in my life has been to avoid embarrassing my children by doing the job I do. I hope I've managed to do that and I hope that with the job I'm in now they are if not proud at least unembarrassed by it. I must say my three are most agreeable children who do nothing but delight me.

Most people like to read about intrigue and spies. I hope to provide a metaphor for the average reader's daily life. Most of us live in a slightly conspiratorial relationship with our employer and perhaps with our marriage.

When one takes action for others one's own suffering is transformed into the energy that can keep one moving forward a light of hope illuminating a new tomorrow for oneself and others is kindled.

My dear sister I hope when God Almighty in his righteous providence shall take me out of time into eternity that it will be by a flash of lightning.

We hope the world will act in the spirit of enlightened self-interest.