Anyone can be shamed, but feeling guilt requires empathy within.

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.

When things get really bad, you take comfort in the placeness of a place.

The past is the tomorrow that got away.

Napster hijacked our music without asking. They never sought our permission. Our catalog of music simply became available as free downloads on the Napster system.

The life of great geniuses is nothing but a sublime storm.

I think the Chinese will say the hell with you and pull their money out of the United States. That's the end of our wars.

One of the most important elements in teaching, conducting, and performing, all three, is listening.

People are always arguing: New York or L.A.? They're both great places, you know.

I'm not a Republican, nor a Democrat, nor an American, and got sense enough to know it.

The loss of body hair is interesting to anthropologists, because it is a feature that distinguishes us from our nearest living relatives, chimpanzees. They have body hair, we don't.

Life is fits and starts, mostly fits.