Of course there's objective truth, but when we're looking at people's accounts of it, it seems the real truth lies in the accretion of all these different versions.

I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar.

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.

Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.

According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.

It's a big world, and I really like it.

Character is that sum total of moments we can't explain.

The generalizing writer is like the passionate drunk, stumbling into your house mumbling: I know I'm not being clear, exactly, but don't you kind of feel what I'm feeling?

Kindness, it turns out, is hard - it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include . . . well, EVERYTHING.

In my day you didn't speak until spoken to.

Because anybody can write, but not everybody invents new forms of writing. Gertrude Stein invented a new form of writing and her imitators are just "talents."

You can never get the smell of smoke out. Like the smell of failure in life.

Everything in your life gets better when you get better, and nothing is ever going to get better until you get better.

Love and dignity cannot share the same abode.

We cannot steal the fire. We must enter it.

Once you adopt a value-investment strategy, any other investment behavior starts to seem like gambling.

The thing about life is, every time you learn a lesson, another is waiting right at the corner. You never know everything.

Whose hands are God's hands, but our hands?

I said it in the beginning. That I was gonna take them niggaz out the game and sure enough I will. Already people can't look at Biggie and not laugh.