No," I said finally. "Slowness in Answering," she said into the handheld. "When's the last time you slept?" "1940" I said promptly, which is the problem with Quickness in Answering.

Fred Astaire is my hero. I love him because he was willing to kill himself to make his art look effortless. And because he proved it's possible to be an artist and a good person.

I learned everything I know about plot from Dame Agatha (Christie).

I have never written anything in one draft, not even a grocery list, although I have heard from friends that this is actually possible.

And every place and time an author writes about is imaginary, from Oz to Raymond Chandler's L.A. to Dickens's London.

It is my belief that everything you need to know about the world can be learned in a church choir.

Why do only the awful things become fads? I thought. Eye-rolling and Barbie and bread pudding. Why never chocolate cheesecake or thinking for yourself?

I have great faith in the future of books - no matter what form they may take - and of science fiction.

Science fiction is an amazing literature: plot elements that you would think would be completely worn out by now keep changing into surprising new forms.

To do something for someone or something you loved-England or Shakespeare or a dog or the Hodbins or history-wasn't a sacrifice at all. Even if it cost you your freedom, your life, your youth.

Writers are too neurotic to ever be happy.

Only the forward-looking Christian remains sincerely optimistic and joyful, knowing that Christ will win in the end.

Pressed against her I can hear eternity -- hollow, lonely spaces and currents that churn ceaselessly, and the fallen snow welcomes the falling snow with a whispered "Hush".

That life is far too short to waste on grudges. Love does not come along often. When it does, you can’t throw it away because it isn’t perfect.

But when the flash flood crosses your path, when the lion leaps at you from the grasses, advanced self-awareness is an unaffordable indulgence. The brain stem does its best.

The theatre, our theatre, comes from the Greeks

They [the Kochs] want free trade and cheap labour. They own the second-largest private company in America, which is a huge multinational corporation. So they are on a different wavelength.

When I'm doing an accent, you shouldn't notice it for a while, if I'm doing it right.

Hide the ideas, but so that people find them. The most important will be the most hidden.

People put you down because you're above them.

When you set goals, something inside of you starts saying, "Let's go, let's go," and ceilings start to move up.