Characterization requires a constant back-and-forth between the exterior events of the story and the inner life of the character.

Compelling characters are not cogs in the machine of your plot; they are human beings to whom the story happens.

Whether we know it or not, our minds and hearts are populated by all the characters we will ever need - though we may disassemble them and rearrange the parts into composites for variation.

An intuitive grasp of your character is formed by exploring scenes of profound emotional import-moments of overwhelming shame, joy, fear, pride, regret, forgiveness.

The problem lies not with genre but with formula, which consists of seeing genre conventions as restrictions rather than mere guidelines, ends in themselves rather than possibilities.

It's gonna take a while. It's normal to take a while. You've just gotta fight your way through.

Hatred is like fire-it makes even light rubbish deadly.

I really admire Werner Herzog and Spike Lee. They're amazing documentarians. If you took away all the narratives, they'd just be amazing documentarians.

It's really annoying when you're trying to get to know someone and she doesn't pay attention to you because she's obsessed with her phone.

A new theory is guilty until proven innocent, and the pre-existing theory innocent until proven guilty ... Continental drift was guilty until proven innocent.

I drank a bottle of wine for company. It was Chateau Margaux. It was pleasant to be drinking slowly and to be tasting the wine and to be drinking alone. A bottle of wine was good company.

I collect books, a lot of books.

I am the indoctrinated child of two lapsed Irish Catholics. Which is to say: I am not religious.

I aim here only at revealing myself, who will perhaps be different tomorrow, if I learn something new which changes me.