[F]rank knew he was guilty of arrogance and misanthropy, but he compensated by being kind to strangers and tipping really well at restaurants.

Everybody likes to have a place to think, to meditate, to eat a burrito.

If you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing.

He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.

Life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.

If you teach kids how to tell stories, they have a better chance at everything.

What kind of life can you have in a house without books?

Don't live up to your stereotypes.

When you resort to violence to prove a point, you’ve just experienced a profound failure of imagination.

If one reads enough books one has a fighting chance. Or better, one's chances of survival increase with each book one reads.

Do you know why the Indian rain dances always worked? Because the Indians would keep dancing until it rained.

A comedy isn’t about being funny...a comedy is about characters who dare to know that they may choose a happy ending after all.

The minute I sat in front of a canvas I was happy. Because it was a world, and I could do what I liked in it.

Form the habit of making decisions when your spirit is fresh...to let dark moods lead is like choosing cowards to command armies.

If everyone lives roughly the same lies about the same thing, there is no one to call them liars. They jointly establish their own sanity and themselves normal.

Know the men who follow you and let them know you. Don't ask your men to die for a stranger.

If you take anything I say with any seriousness whatsoever, go study Yang style tai chi. It will make you live longer.

Am I grumpy? I might be. But I think maybe sometimes it's misinterpreted.

I've done a lot of tough stories over the years. I've done a lot of profiles over the years that have not always been, shall we say, helpful for the person who is being written about.

All human belief systems are inherently flawed.

If you don't believe in God, then where is your moral barometer?