Stand-up comedy had an interesting effect on me in terms of how I started to think about constructing things, because I really loved the interstices, the linkages, or lack thereof.

Yo! You’re my dope dealer not my thesis adviser. If I wanted your opinion about my dissertation, I’d have asked for it, Motherfucker!

“Et Tu, Babe” was born out of my absolute certainty that a writer’s life was solitary and insular, and I was happy with that. I love reading and writing, it’s my whole life.

Sometimes I think my purpose is as a saboteur when I'm working with other people, derailing what they're trying to do or taking things to a ludicrous extremity.

One of the things that struck me as unique about Hollywood is that I never had bad meetings. There were all enthusiastic, but meaninglessly enthusiastic.

I think to simply make fun of something isn't particularly interesting. I try to not just do a parody of something or belittle something or disparage something.

I was an infinitely hot and dense dot.

The interesting thing about something in the back of your mind is that it can travel pretty far back in your mind.

It's in great joy that we grasp truth.

I can tell from about 20 yards away when someone has a manuscript for me. I can just tell - they have that look.

I think of memory as a game, that is as something one engages in with a very profound kind of "playfulness."

That's one of those things about love. It always assumes it can find a way to express itself.

The Algerians were revolutionsists, they wanted land. France offered to let them be integrated into France. They told France, to hell with Fance, they wanted some land, not some France.

When the moon gets bored, it kills whales. Blue whales and fin whales and humpback, sperm, and orca whales: centrifugal forces don’t discriminate.

I hurt so many people.

The good thing about social media is it gives everyone a voice. The bad thing is … it gives everyone a voice.

The back-doore robs the house.

What could I do with $1 million? What can I do with the satisfaction that I perhaps today helped somebody to have a better life. That's real reward. The million dollars, nothing.

We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

If you understand compound interest, you basically understand the universe.

America, for me, is the country where, if you have something great to offer, you'll be valued highly.