People who are sick, or who have been sick, or have come close to death have a lot to say - and they want you to hear it.

What you are will show, ultimately. Start now, every day, becoming, in your actions, your regular actions, what you would like to become in the bigger scheme of things.

I'm interested when things are upside down - because there are so many possibilities in that one moment. There is a lot that is exposed.

Identity is an assemblage of constellations.

We spend so much time bantering about the words when the real open conversations might very well be our actions. I worry about our rhetoric.

You can't teach talent. You can't teach inspiration. You can teach people critical facilities. You can give them techniques. You can teach discipline. And you can teach them about the business.

Each person has a literature inside them.

Hope is when you look out the window and you go, 'It doesn't look good at all, but I'm going to go beyond what I see to give people visions of what could be.'

Friendship is a wildly underrated medication.

Be more than ready. Be present in your discipline. Remember your gift. Be grateful for your gift and treat it like a gift. Cherish it, take care of it, and pass it on.

You've heard that old expression from Shakespeare, 'Just speak the speech'? The words themselves will take you to the reality of the character. And so this led me to interview people.

Was the sky always this shade of magenta?

Oats n.s. A grain which in England is generally given to horses but in Scotland supports the people.

A healthy love life is not and should not be the preserve of those in their 20s and 30s. It's important at all ages.

Bid me to love, and I will give a loving heart to thee.

There are certain people whom one feels almost inclined to urge to hurry up and die so that their letters can be published.

What's interesting about the Trump administration is how bitterly divided they are in their attitudes towards Putin.

I had a meeting in LA in which they took a really overstuffed hour and a half. It was as close to old Hollywood as I remembered it in the last 20 years.

I want to be a poet, from head to toe, living and dying by poetry.

Anything said in upper-crust British automatically sounded intelligent.

The only good Indian is a dead Indian