The literary world is more time-traveling than the art world, and novelty is much more important in art than it is in writing.

Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead.

Boring people don't know they're boring. That's the problem with boring people.

I'm trying always to leave out what I think is extraneous. And to find what I think is the most wonderful language to make a beautiful sentence.

I think it's true that unless human beings experience something, they simply don't understand what people are going through.

I'm the author of my own misery.

I don't think anybody says to Coetzee or Dostoyevsky or Kafka, "Your characters aren't likeable." It's not about your character winning a popularity contest. That's not the writer's job.

It's not the writer who determines how good she is anyway. Writers don't determine that. It's readers who determine that.

Do the obvious, you won't forget it. Do the obvious, you won't regret it. Obvious, obvious, obvious.

Nonfiction gives you subjects. Writing fiction I can have more fun, but I have to invent my subject.

Without curiosity a writer is dead.

Life is unbearable pain.

Children are very strong and independent characters and can come up with more interesting things than Marlon Brando, and it's sometimes very difficult to direct or order them to do something.

I turned down five million dollars from a lobbyist who wanted to put up $5m for my campaign, a very strong lobbyist. I said, I don't want your money.

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others.

Virtue is not always amiable.

There are many ways to be a mother. I have a lot of young actors I mentor, and my nieces and my nephews need a lot of love.

I think definitely people know me from playing creeps and weirdos, and I'm definitely looking to expand my range.

I like a good mono track, it's right up front. I don't need all the surrounds telling me there are birds in the neighbourhood.

You can't beat a nice glass of Chardonnay after a really long, hard day.

Real repentance means coming not only to be sorry for the consequences of sin but to hate sin itself.