Time constricts and flattens, you know. It's not evenly weighted. Certain moments linger in the mind and others disappear.

So is it just human nature to believe that things happen for a reason - to find some shred of meaning even in the worst experiences?

It's human nature to want to think the best of others, but if you listen carefully, people will always tell you who they are.

You got to learn to take what people are willing to give.

And so it is that you learn how to pass, if you're lucky, to look like everyone else, even though you're broken inside.

I like the assumption that everyone is trying his best, and we should all just be kind to each other.

One of the wonderful things about being a writer is that you're constantly dredging up some arcane knowledge or long-forgotten experience, rediscovering old passions and interests.

I've come to think that's what heaven is- a place in the memory of others where our best selves live on.

I never want to feel constrained by writing a novel for a specific audience.

I have a lot of empathy for women who fit their writing into the crevices of their too-busy lives, as I once did.

People have to snatch at happiness when they can, in this world. It is always easier to lose than to find...

Pointing to another world will never stop vice among us

I just like music that sounds like music. Not like machines and computers and things that you design to make things sound slick and perfect.

I think it's really important that we get rid of the idea that protest will create change.

The last thing it [government] ought to do is to ground its proceedings on the ignorance of the people, - to yield them that which they will hereafter despise the donors for granting them.

I am just really focused in on what I love doing, but I would be a moron to not take some of my natural talent - I'm not saying I'm that talented, but I have enough acting and writing talent to go.

Home. Wow. I’m already calling it home. Well, isn’t that what any place is? Any place that you share with someone you love, I mean?

You don’t just go to somebody and say, ‘I’m a better person because you’re in my head.

One day, someone said to me, 'Do you want to go jump out of an airplane?' I felt like I had nothing to lose anymore, so I said, 'Why not?' And every day since then, I ask myself that question.

There is something beautiful and permanent in the world, and that is the love that a person can have for another human being.

Tis the eternal law, That first in beauty should be first in might.