A major part of the meaning of life is contained in the very process of discovering it.

Growth takes place in a person by working at a deep inner level in a sustained atmosphere of silence.

The meaning of life cannot be told; it has to HAPPEN to a person.

The meaning of life cannot be told; it has to happen to a person ... To speak as though it were an objective knowledge, like the date of the war of 1812, misses the point altogether.

One expects decent people to stand up for the good of all. Decent people shut their doors and hide behind them as decent people do. Massacres could never happen if it weren't for decent people.

Papa!” she whispered. “I have no eyes!”He patted the girl’s hair. She’d fallen into his trap. “With a smile like that, ” Hans Hubermann said, “you don’t need eyes.

Which is better: to dare to look directly into the blinding present, no matter how painful, or to await the detachment of hindsight -- which, being less painful, is more objective?

I don't want my kids growing up believing that there is nothing destructive in the world.

You know, the point of a novel - or to me, the point of a novel, the gift of a novel is to go really deeply inside people's lives and inside their personal experiences.

I am single and happy.

Forgiveness is the only way to heal

You can't do anything yourself on TV... unless you have a LOT of money, but you can do an independent movie.

In this country we find it pays to shoot an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.

Style is something that's extremely important, but it must grow naturally out of who and what you are and what the material calls for. It cannot be superimposed.