For me, when I'm coming up to a place where I have to make somebody up, it's almost like driving and taking your hands off the wheel.

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.

The poor will provide you what they don't have and what you need while the rich will give you what they have and what you want.

[A] book is not merely a book, it is the sun as well.

Faith is in the eye of the beholder.

We cheerleaders are peppy and happy and get front row seats to the game!

Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

When I was a school kid in Coventry, I used to put up anti-apartheid stickers.

Actors wait tables, directors work at video stores.

children had no place in love affairs. Children ought to be born to widows and old maids.

Fighting the wounds of the past will only deepen those wounds. Relaxation is the method that heals the wounds of the mind, not reaction.

How uninteresting interesting things can become.