What is money, after all? Almost nothing, when one has a sufficiency of it.

Fictional characters are made of words, not flesh; they do not have free will, they do not exercise volition. They are easily born, and as easily killed off.

In order really to write one has to sink deep into the self and become lost there.

All my life I have lied. I lied to escape, I lied to be loved, I lied for placement and power; I lied to lie. It was a way of living; lies are life's almost-anagram.

The past beats inside me like a second heart.

If I was asked to say what was the greatest invention of human beings, I would say the sentence.

Everything we do is tinged with the knowledge that this may be the last time that we will do this, and that makes what we're doing incredibly sweet.

We carry the dead with us only until we die too, and then it is we who are borne along for a little while, and then our bearers in their turn drop, and so on into the unimaginable generations.

To take possession of a city of which you are not a native you must first fall in love there.

For memory, we use our imagination. We take a few strands of real time and carry them with us, then like an oyster we create a pearl around them.

A man is not much if he can't depend on himself, and nothing if others can't depend on him.

We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.

I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens.

Legal aid... is fundamental to giving everybody in this country access to justice.

Writing is something you do alone. It's a profession for introverts who wanna tell you a story but don't wanna make eye contact while telling it

I haven't turned into an absolute geek who doesn't like doing fun things.

My first cut was three hours and 17 minutes. And then I just became very shrewd about the editing.

God created Adam lord of all living creatures, but Eve spoiled it all.

I look for something unique, and I look for people who haven't reached their potential. I think I'm pretty good at developing talent.

Life shows no trend to complexity in the usual sense-only an asymmetrical expansion of diversity around a starting point constrained to be simple.

You can't do extraordinary things in the world if you're spending time criticizing others because they don't look or behave the way you think they should.