Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night's sleep, and strangers' monologues framed like Russian short stories.

...a society without jaywalkers might indicate a society without artists.

Any fight in life whether it is physical, mental, moral, or spiritual, how long you stay in the fight is highly dependent on your growth.

When truth is no longer free, freedom is no longer real: the truths of the police are the truths of today.

We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art.

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.

I don't talk a lot when I interview. My job is to get out of the way.

When I write I pretend I'm telling a story to someone in the room and I don't want them to get up until I'm finished.

"We speak different languages, as usual," responded Woland, "but this does not change the things we speak about. Well?..."

Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.

I'm homesick. But I cannot go back to Syria. I lost everything. And I'm against the Syrian regime, so there is no way to go back. I'm really homesick.

However, President Obama's unwillingness to attend the Paris march is a personal failing on his part that I believe does damage to the pride and soul of the nation he leads.