All along, my mantra was: Don't write unless it contributes to the emotion, and do anything you do in service of the emotion only.

I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar.

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.

Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.

According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.

It's a big world, and I really like it.

Character is that sum total of moments we can't explain.

The generalizing writer is like the passionate drunk, stumbling into your house mumbling: I know I'm not being clear, exactly, but don't you kind of feel what I'm feeling?

Kindness, it turns out, is hard - it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include . . . well, EVERYTHING.

You ought to find the joy, hope and love of existence.

Speak kindly to and of yourself.

If it gathers dust, give it away ...

The first of America's 79 million baby boomers turned 60 this month. Time flies when you're growing old.

I think meditation is great, I really believe that at some point you need to just sit with a cup of tea in a café and just stare at the sky and be grateful.

The nature of the universe has by no means been made through divine power, seeing how great are the faults that mar it.

Was there nought better than to enjoy? No feat which, done, would make time break, And let us pent-up creatures through Into eternity, our due? No forcing earth teach heaven's employ?

I would guess that the price of the script really is secondary. The credit is much more the essence.

A Gothic church is a petrified religion.

Those Montana Indians were so tough that white people were scared of them. Can you imagine a place where white people are scared of Indians and not the other way around? That's Montana.