I think that feels like it to me. I mean whenever you talk about writing I think you have to remember that it all has a big question mark over it - every word has a big question mark over it.

I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar.

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.

Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.

According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.

It's a big world, and I really like it.

Character is that sum total of moments we can't explain.

The generalizing writer is like the passionate drunk, stumbling into your house mumbling: I know I'm not being clear, exactly, but don't you kind of feel what I'm feeling?

Kindness, it turns out, is hard - it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include . . . well, EVERYTHING.

One should always be in love. That's the reason one should never marry.

Beware of anything that would tarnish God's mirror in you. It is always something good stains it—good, but not best.

Things never happen the same way twice.

Sober strip clubs are horrible. When you are sober you see the matrix code behind a strip club. You're paying girls to pretend to like you until you run out of money so they can walk away.

The child who dwells inside us trusts that there are wise men somewhere who know the truth.

Half a man's life is devoted to what he calls improvements, yet the original had some quality which is lost in the process.

If you are picking the lesser of two evils, you are still picking Evil.

It's very hard to make arguments about the effects of cloning on family relations if family relations are in tatters.

The very notion of superiority of one kind over another will have to disappear, although differences among kind will remain.

Cain understands domestic issues because he had experience selling pizza; and he understands international issues because pizza is Italian.