My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.

You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.

Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.

The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.

There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.

Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.

Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.

Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope.

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

To one's enemies: "I hate myself more than you ever could.

The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.

Chance makes our parents but choice makes our friends.

With an apple I will astonish Paris.

Now that I'm a dad, I'm practicing what I call 'one- handed cooking,' because I've got something more important in my other arm. I'm whipping up lots of frittatas and omelets.

I was always someone who lived in the future all the time, it was always the next thing - dreams of escape.

It is not the things you have that make you happy. It is love and kindness and helping each other and just plain being good.

I woke early like a condemned man to the naivety of birdsong.

I will not serve Allah like a laborer, in expectation of my wages.

Death: the grand perhaps.

Which was worse: a friend with brain damage, or one who despised you?

All I owe the world is my art.