A kind of Providence keeps us blind to the intensity of suffering so as to keep us sane, until that day when the suffering is our own or that of someone we love beyond imagining.

Today we fight. Tomorrow we fight. The day after, we fight. And if this disease plans on whipping us, it better bring a lunch, 'cause it's gonna have a long day doing it.

I've attempted to flood the path with light where I could, and where I could not I've wanted at least to hold up a candle so that others coming this way might not stumble too painfully.

How incredibly far our lives drift from where we knew with all certainty they would go. How little today resembles what yesterday thought it would look like.

I will bear this grief, I will endure it. I will reach a point where it doesn't kick me down an abyss whenever I turn my back on it.

How can it be that there is such a colossal gap between what we think we know about grief and mourning and what we actually find out when it comes to us?

I define influence simply as literary love, tempered by defense. The defenses vary from poet to poet. But the overwhelming presence of love is vital to understanding how great literature works.

I hope the perception is that I'm an actor, I never intended to be a movie star.

You cannot limit yourself to one area of specialized craft. Instead, regardless of craft, you have to charge all forms of expression that lead to the community, to other people, with meaning.

It is the life of democracy to favor equality.

The method preferred by most balding men for making themselves look silly is called the comb over.

Help someone in distress and you lighten your own burden; the very joy of alleviating the sorrow of another is the lessening of one's own.

Why seek a doctrine? As soon as you have a doctrine, you fall into dualistic thought.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

Every now and then I'll do little things, a short story or something, that doesn't have any fantastical elements, but mostly I like the power of playing God and I like to imagine things.

At least you don’t need a prescription for tequila.