I try to keep my artistic opinions not so much "to myself" but "on myself."

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.

Step by step, let whatever happens happen. Real change will come when it is brought about, not by your ego, but by reality. Awareness releases reality to change you.

The frontiers of the future will be the ruins of the unsustainable.

Stand by me, my brave grenadiers!

It is not people who break ethical standards who are regarded as aliens. It is people like me who are isolated.

There's no point breaking a lot of crockery unnecessarily.

People who commit crimes should be responsible for those crimes. It doesn't matter whether they're priests or ministers or atheists.

I don't think I have any right to say I belong to that [Woody Guthrie/Bob Dylan tradition]. I think that's something that eventually maybe you get inducted into. I'm just experimenting.

Solitude is the natural dwelling place of truth…It is there you will wrestle. It is there you will be tested by fire and by darkness.

An exclusive person hates ugliness, discomfort, enemies, sickness, poverty, ignorance. He finally concludes that there is no God and give himself over to abandonment.

And when again it's morning, they'll wash away. Here it's safe, here it's warm Here the daisies guard you from every harm.