Fiction challenges us and works its miracles by placing us in the skin of another human being and teaching us empathy.

Killing a man should be harder than waving a length of pipe in their direction. It should take long enough for one's conscience to get in the way.

Even in the darkness, his smile threw shadows.

It was the hubris of each generation to think this anew, to think that their time was special, that all things would come to an end with them.

Sometimes a thing needed opening before closure was found.

It’s easy to forgo distractions and to not accumulate things when you have a larger goal on the horizon.

I'd rather excite the imagination of a legion of readers and make pennies from each of them than hold off for a larger chunk of change from only a handful of fans.

Heroes didn't win. The heroes were whoever happened to win. History told their story -- the dead didn't say a word. All of it was bullshit.

"What we control," Juliette said, "is our actions once fate puts us there."

My life is too tight, he wanted to say. My skin is too tight. The walls are too tight.

There were certain things, learned so young and remembered so deep that they felt like little stones in the center of her mind.

What must it be like to have such faith in the world, in plans, in your own ability to control your fate? It was contagious, that's what it was. I could not help it. I caught his hope like a plague.

I. All the distinctive characteristics of personality are ascribed to the Holy Spirit in the Bible.

I take people very seriously. People are all I take seriously, in fact. Therefore, I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave - and nothing but laughter to console them with.

When I was fired from my post as General of the Fighter Arm, I was to give proof that this jet was a superior fighter. And that's when we did it. I think we did it.

I wanted someone to love who would stay: stay and be there, always.

Ultimately, making movies, if you don't have a big star, it's hard to do. Or if it's not a star director.

So I went for engineering, specifically product design, which I enjoyed.

Going to the movies still remains, arguably, amongst the best communal experiences that human beings can share.

While local matters are happening around you, let your mind sail to the ocean of universal matters.

I would get my student loans, get money, register and never really go. It was a system I thought would somehow pan out.