An ink bottle, which now seems impossibly quaint, was still thinkable as a symbol in 1970.

I guess my life hasn’t always been happy, or easy, or exactly what I want. At a certain point, I just have to try not to think too much about certain things, or else they’ll break my heart.

Fiction is a solution, the best solution, to the problem of existential solitude.

It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.

Integrity's a neutral value. Hyenas have integrity, too. They're pure hyena.

Nice people don't necessarily fall in love with nice people.

The personality susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom is a personality also prone, should the dream ever sour, to misanthropy and rage.

The Mekons were kind of like the background music of my life.

Depression presents itself as a realism regarding the rottenness of the world in general and the rottenness of your life in particular.

Reading enables me to maintain a sense of something substantive– my ethical integrity, my intellectual integrity.

Fiction is a particularly effective way for strangers to connect across time and distance

Exceptional customer service proactively manages your brand and reactively can turn upset customers into raving fans based on how you handled their complaint.

You know you're down and out when Okies laugh at you, ' she said. With our garbage bag taped window, our tied down hood, and art supplies strapped to the roof, we'd out-Okied the Okies.

It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.

If you say 'Good Morning' in America and it's five past twelve you end up with a lawsuit.

Service is a balm to both the spirit and the body.

I come from the world of improv; I love any show or any vehicle that gives me an opportunity to be in the moment.

A number of U.S. colleges are going to start having dorms for alcoholics. I believe those are called dorms.

I think that being mindful of your own biases tends to lead you into ambiguity, not clarity, and that following those ambiguities is the only way to approach the universal.

It seems to be part of the human condition to need someone you can look down on. I still don't get that one.

Real persuasion comes from putting more of you into everything you say. Words have an effect. Words loaded with emotion have a powerful effect.