It's a brooding melancholy that haunts me.

When it comes time to sit down and write the next book, you're deathly afraid that you're not up to the task. That was certainly the case with me after Snow Falling on Cedars.

The status quo was rote memorization and recitation in classrooms thronged with passive children who were sternly disciplined when they expressed individual needs.

My father is a practicing criminal law attorney in the Seattle area.

At one level you're condemned to the voice you have. But within those confines, you have a certain amount of freedom to range among your possible voices.

There are things in this universe that we cannot control, and then there are the things we can. . . . Let fate, coincidence, and accident conspire; human beings must act on reason.

What some people interpret as brooding melancholy is serenity. I don't feel required to grasp all the time.

accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart.

There's a certain nostalgia and romance in a place you left.

I'm interested in themes that endure from generation to generation.

I think you have an obligation to share what you know as a writer.

‎I cannot alter the past, but the future is very much in my hands.

When you fully focus your mind, you make others attracted to you.

If you can't do anything but fight, so every single solitary thing, every single solitary day, then the privilege of dreaming becomes something that only a few people have.

The sort of movies I make are not ones that can easily be sold upfront, so I have to make them and prove their mettle before I can sell them.

When you think an angry thought about someone, it's like hitting them.

There are infinitely many variations of the initial situation and therefore no doubt indefinitely many theorems of moral geometry.

We are unlimited beings. We have no ceiling. The capabilities and the talents and the gifts and the power that is within every single individual that is on this planet, is unlimited.

A man must thank his defects, and stand in some terror of his talents.

Even though 'Glee' is sometimes a hard road, I am very excited about writing a multi-year arc.

I feel like I experienced my 20s in all their glory and all their disastrousness.