To be a writer you need to see things as they are, and to see things as they are you need a certain basic innocence.

Time, which is your enemy in almost everything in this life, is your friend in writing.

We are made to persist. that's how we find out who we are.

Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it.

One of the things that draws writers to writing is that they can get things right that they got wrong in real life by writing about them.

The beauty of a fragment is that it still supports the hope of brilliant completeness.

A piece of writing is a dangerous thing," he said. "It can change your life.

Real maturity is the ability to imagine the humanity of every person as fully as you believe in your own humanity.

Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow.

Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order.

Most of us dont live lives that lend themselves to novelistic expression, because our lives are so fragmented.

When trust is broken, sorry means nothing.

The music is all around us, all you have to do is listen.

Something draws you... An impatience with your own ignorance.

We are masters of our characters and in turn, slaves of their outgrowth.

I'm lucky with my skin - it doesn't require a lot of attention, so I keep things simple. And I drink a lot of water.

Somewhere at the top of the pyramid in the invisible government are a few sinister people who know exactly what they are doing: They want America to become part of a worldwide socialist dictatorship.

Come on, I know bad acting when I hear it.

Nowhere can it rain harder and with a more tiresome persistence than in California during the brief season when it rains at all.

I fooled around with Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams got pregnant.

I'm starting to think about my life, thinking about where I'm going to be in three years time: who I'm going to be with, where I'm going to be situated myself.