A novel must show how the world truly is, how characters genuinely think, how events actually occur. A novel should somehow reveal the true source of our actions.

The past should be culled like a box of fresh strawberries rinsed of debris sweetened judiciously and served in small portions not very often.

I think books in which people are really happy and things are going well are probably the most challenging novels there are to write, and there are very few of them.

I don't want to be Oprah [Winfrey], I'm not trying to be Barbara Walters, but we can all do better.

We rehearsed for two weeks [in "Fences"], and we taped out the whole house in the front, and the rooms, and we stood it up like a play. We tried to get off book and gave people small props.

Je sais de quelles petitesses meurent les plus grandes amours. I know how pettiness ruins the greatest loves.

Make friendship a fine art.

Happiness lies only in that which excites, and the only thing that excites is crime.

I never went to drama school.

Acting is mostly interpretive. They use different parts of you, and different sides of you, and different so-called talents.

We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies.