I was twenty-one when I was hired by Planned Parenthood. It was my first work experience outside of either temping or working for my father at his store.

Feminism now seems to be defined as success is defined: as being as good at capitalism as men are. I feel very estranged from it.

I understand maybe some people are more impressionable than my hard, cynical self, but maybe they need to figure out how to be less of that.

Once you leave, you're no longer of that country, but you are never actually of the country that you go to, and if you go back, you're not anywhere. You never belong to anything.

American culture never necessarily made sense to me, but they should warn you: leaving comes with a huge sense of alienation that never goes away.

Talk to people who know more than you. I feel like we're in this stupid sea of opinion, like "My opinion is valid because it's mine and I have it."

You don't have to go to New York and you don't have to go to LA or London. Go somewhere cheap. Go somewhere with free art museums and then just go to art museums.

Go to a place and just send out emails. That's my entire life. I go to countries and I ask, "Who would I know who lives here?" Not even do I know, but who exists and is on the planet.

There's this resistance to actually talking to people who are smarter than you about things and I don't know why that is.

I knew my motivations for going to each place and what I was looking for. If I don't do that then I generally don't write about my travels.

I like European and South American literature, but mostly I read nonfiction.

You should have seen him, ” she said. “A real ladies’ man. Stuff in his hair. Dark glasses. Fancy shoes. He had no idea how funny he looked. I much prefer men with ordinary shoes and honest trousers.

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.

When everybodys clicking, we can put a lot of runs on the board.

Pain may be said to follow pleasure as its shadow; but the misfortune is that in this particular case, the substance belongs to the shadow, the emptiness to its cause.

Tommy [ Lee Jones] doesn't suffer fools easily. I think everybody knows that, but I have great respect for someone that's very direct and very honest. I don't have thin skin so I'm okay with that.

Humor is one of the most serious tools we have for dealing with impossible situations.

Of course great politicians are always liable to be wrong about something, and the more people tell them they are wrong, the more stubbornly they defend their error.

If we don't get a grip on government spending, there will be no growth.

Tis easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue-- 'Tis the natural way of living.

If you are all open in your heart, you are clean. If you are all open in your self, you are naive.