The story has to flow from an unstructured, felt place, but then I have to bring my analytical brain to bear on issues of craft.

Things, very strange things, happen in folktales and there is never much attention given to the whys and wherefores.

But every age deserves its fashion and its forms, and no one can control what survives.

Why did people try to shush trouble away as if it were an unruly child?

Writing, for me, is always a dance between the critical part of my brain and the subconscious.

I guess I'm drawn to stories of people whose physicality puts them on the outside of things in order to explore the ways in which an identity is formed around these prevailing attitudes.

I never know where I'm headed when I'm working on a book.

We are like flowers always reaching up towards some shred of light. I find this wondrous, nearly magical, certainly brave.

I'm interested in endurance. People persist in the face of the most excruciating hardships.

As we change, the way in which we are perceived in terms of our relevance, our value, our beauty, and sexual potency changes.

We grow, we mature, some of us give birth, we age, we die.

Amy sat back and grinned. "You just smiled." That was definitely something else she could get used to.Of course, he frowned immediately. "I smile.

The future is unlimited for you right now, no one can knows what you capable of. Do not surrender! Only you are capable to change the world.

If every citizen should recite their national anthem daily, you will develop love to serve your country better.

An emotion as much tells you nothing about reality, beyond the fact that something makes you feel something.

We could steal time, just for one day We can be Heroes, for ever and ever What d'you say?

I don't whistle at you down the street. I would if I could, but I can't whistle you see.

The lot of critics is to be remembered by what they failed to understand.

You never ask why you've been fired because if you do, they're liable to tell you.

The script is the foundation, but it's not the full story for the film, which only comes alive with the actors.

When I watched Ellen come out in '97, my jaw was on the floor. I thought, There are some people who break the doors down, hold them open, and some people who walk right through.