Also minimalism is a term that all of us who share so little in common and who are lumped together as minimalists are not terribly happy with.

People forget years and remember moments.

When I was teaching at Harvard in the 1970s, I went to Project Incorporated in Cambridge and took photography classes. I didn't even know how to aim the camera in those days.

Because I don’t work with an outline, writing a story is like crossing a stream, now I’m on this rock, now I’m on this rock, now I’m on this rock.

Clichés so often befall vain people.

I think almost always that what gets me going with a story is the atmosphere, the visual imagery, and then I people it with characters, not the other way around.

I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality.

There is some reason, obviously, that you are drawn to your material, but the way in which you explore it might come to be quite different from what you would expect.

Nobody can assume that, to a writer, everything is off-limits.

I like a lot of Margaret Atwood, I like much of Alice Munro. Again, if you were to ask me about male writers, there's often a novel I admire, but not all of their works.

It's often been said that I'm an extremely depressing, cynical writer. I've never known what to make of that.

The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

The discovery that it is in our power to change our lives by the thoughts we think is the first step toward spiritual mastery.

I try to approach making movies in a way that it's about the making of them and not the result of them, if that makes sense.

Mom is always saying I'm a smart kid, but that I just don't apply myself.

Christianity has enriched the erotic meal with the appetizer of curiosity and spoiled it with the dessert of remorse.

[On Regis Philbin:] He's like everybody's kid brother with his hand in the cookie jar and his foot in his mouth. You love him, but you can't take him anywhere.

Every single character in the world, every creature in the world has something to give and something to learn.

Symmetry looks good to us; we want more of it.

I'll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.

By practice and conviction formed, With ancient stubbornness ingrained, Although her body clung and swarmed, My own identity remained.