I've always known a lot of very bad people, destructive, brutes of a certain kind. Then I've seen these lovely impulses and what not, and they've stayed with me and comforted me.

When you read to a child, when you put a book in a child's hands, you are bringing that child news of the infinitely varied nature of life. You are an awakener.

A good novel begins with a small question and ends with a bigger one.

The minute you become conscious that you are doing good, that's the minute you have to stop because from then on it's wrong.

To be human is to be in a story.

Families hold each other in an iron grip of definition. One must break the grip, somehow.

The language of labels is like paper money, issued irresponsibly, with nothing of intrinsic value behind it, that is, with no effort of the intelligence to see, to really apprehend.

Literature is the province of imagination, and stories, in whatever guise, are meditations on life.

People steal into one's consciousness and occupy what seems, in retrospect, to have been their place all along.

I was the goldfish that leapt out of the bowl.

Life is all getting used to what you're not used to.

Feet, what do I need them forIf I have wings to fly.

To me, having kids is the ultimate job in life. I want to be most successful at being a good father.

Managing is getting paid for home runs that someone else hits.

Solitude shows us what should be society shows us what we are.

Crony capitalism is essentially a condition in which... public officials are giving favours to people in the private sector in payment of political favours.

Everyone wants to lead an extraordinary life.

There'll be icicles and birthday clothes And sometimes there'll be sorrow

There is hardly a mistake which in the course of our lives we have committed, but some proverb, had we known and attended to its lesson, might have saved us from it.

What is a movie star? A movie star is many things. They can be tall, short, thin, or skinny. They can be Democrats... or skinny.

I think I was about nine years old when I got my first job.