Actually, my first literary heroes were the Romantic poets, so I began to get serious by writing poems. I have notebooks full of them that I cherish but am afraid to look at.

I grew up in a house without many books. The books the nuns made us read in school didn't interest me.

In revision, your imagination becomes deeply engaged with your material. It's when you come to know your characters and begin to perceive their motivations and values.

A pure love is a selfless love, but can desire ever be selfless?

The landscape of childhood shapes us as it shapes the characters in our stories. You never forget the sacred places of your childhood.

Drug programs began to turn their attention and money away from prevention and into maintenance. Methadone was cheaper than social workers, I suppose.

A lack of narrative structure, as you know, will cause anxiety.

You lose a wallet or keys or something and you notice in a second, but your life can go missing and you don't even know it.

Every act of loving affirms the goodness of the lover just because he is capable of loving and being loved.

Love is always a surprise and you never get it right.

The purpose of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written.

This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.

But words are more powerful than anything.

I bet you have girls hanging all over you. Dozens would probably kill to be in my spot and here I am, allergic to your bread.” I looked up. “Why? Because of my near godlike perfection?

Sometimes there are things worth risking your life for. It was Jesus who said if you want to save your life, you have to lose it.

Devotion to you, O Blessed Virgin, is a means of salvation which God gives to those whom he wishes to save.

That's interesting to hear you say that because watching it [the Waitress] for the first time at Sundance was fascinating - it was so different from the experience of making it.

For storytelling purposes, there has to be conflict, but that doesn't mean the people have to be mean. I've never liked mean-spirited comedy.

I felt suddenly very young - or perhaps I felt my age.

I'm the kind of person that when I really want something, I wish for it. I wish on shooting stars. I wish on lots of things.

The muscle memory of filtering away all the wrong versions of what you're doing improves the more time you're on a film set. I feel like my problem-solving algorithm got kicked up a notch.