We can only die in the future, I thought; right now we are always alive.

Just because you have stopped sinking doesn't mean you're not still underwater.

Sometimes a flat-footed sentence is what serves, so you don't get all writerly: 'He opened the door.' There, it's open.

They say the smart dog obeys but the smarter dog knows when to disobey.

Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.

Wear your heart on the page, and people will read to find out how you solved being alive.

In my head there's a broken balcony I fall off of when I speak.

if it's true your life flashes past your eyes before you die, then it is also the truth that your life rushes forth when you are ready to start to truly be alive.

I sleep with a glass of water on the nightstand so I can see by its level if the coastal earth is trembling or if the shaking is still me.

I want to know everything about you, so I tell you everything about myself.

I exaggerated even before I began to exaggerate, because it's true — nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.

The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years.

Did you weep for the children who lost their dear loved ones and pray for the ones who don't know? Did you rejoice for the people who walked from the rubble, and sob for the ones left below?

I don't think you can bring the races together by joking about the differences between them. I'd rather talk about the similarities, about what's universal in their experiences.

I always try to do something very different with each character because that's why I like to do this, because I can become someone else completely and it's fun.

I'm a pointillist, just working my tiny little piece of the canvas. I'm not so good at perspective.

When you have the intuition that there is something which is there, but out of the reach of your physical world, art and religion are the only means to get to it.

Do I have a long-term plan? Kind of. I have a general direction, I think. But it's funny what comes down the pike.

Capitalism Survive?—I have tried to show that a socialist form of society will inevitably emerge from an equally inevitable decomposition of capitalist society.

If you can find something that you're really passionate about, whether you're a man or a woman comes a lot less into play. Passion is a gender-neutralizing force.

But the close withdrew: the hand softened. It was over-- the moment.