Every sickness has an alien quality, a feeling of invasion and loss of control that is evident in the language we use about it.

Dreams are stories made by and for the dreamer, and each dreamer has his own folds to open and knots to untie.

Pain is always emotional. Fear and depression keep constant company with chronic hurting.

Ture stories can't be told forward, only backward. We invent them from the vantage point of an ever-changing present and tell ourselves how they unfolded.

Memory changes as a person matures.

The truth is that personality inevitably bleeds into all forms of our intellectual life. We all extrapolate from our own lives in order to understand the world.

Dreaming is another form of thinking, more concrete, more economical, more visual, and often more emotional than the thoughts of the day, but a thinking through of the day, nevertheless.

Memory is essential to who we are, and memories can be both implicit and explicit - unconscious and conscious.

There's a phenomenology of being sick, one that depends on temperament, personal history, and the culture which we live in.

Infancy is irretrievable. Its memories live underground. To what extent they return by stealth or are triggered by various catalysts remains an ongoing question.

True stories can't be told forward, only backward. We invent them from the vantage point of an ever-changing present and tell ourselves how they unfolded.

Writing is taking human experience and wrapping it up into a package of your own ideas and hoping someone will pull the bow smiling on top to see what's hiding inside.

It is important to give, not only to those closer to us, also to our enemies.

Practice easing your way along. Don't get het up or in a dither. Do your best take it as it comes. You can handle anything if you think you can. Just keep your cool and your sense of humor.

I write longhand on legal pads, about half at home and half in cafes. I drink a lot of water and eat a lot of raw carrots.

Not very good with death? Father was a military man, and military men lived with death; lived for death; lived on death. To a professional soldier, oddly enough, death was life.

I never felt big enough playing Thor. And then people talk about you like you're 9-foot tall and 800 pounds. I'm well aware of the illusion. There's not a second where I go: Yeah, I'm a god.

I couldn't worry about anyone else but myself and my health.

The women are stepping up their degree of difficulty more than the men. A lot of us do the same dives as the men now.

All men are not rapists - but almost all rapists are men.

I get quiet joy from the observation of anyone who does his job well.