I began teaching in New York because I needed to stay in the United States and didn't have my immigration papers in order, so working for a university was a way of resolving the issue.

I felt the need to tell stories to understand myself.

What better model of a synthesis than a nocturnal dream? Dreams simplify, don't they?

My stories are very somber, so I think I need the comic ingredient. Besides, life has so much humor.

I can work in films as long as the story doesn't have a realistic nature. If I'm working with an allegory, a fantasy, it can be developed in synthetic terms.

I think cinema is closer to allegories than to reality. It's closer to our dreams.

I am only interested in bad taste if I can enjoy a gruesome tango or watch a movie that makes me cry.

If it's great stuff, the people who consume it are nourished. It's a positive force.

Your reality, isn’t restricted by this cell we live in. If you read something, if you study something, you transcend any cell you’re inside of

If the novelist shares his or her problems with the characters, he or she is able to study his personal unconscious.

Teaching is a good distraction, and I am in contact with young people, which is very gratifying.

Father has a strengthening character like the sun and mother has a soothing temper like the moon.

Many pastors have been reduced to secular "mentors" and "coaches" in exchange for authentic disciplers of men.

Everything has been something before.

Bullies are always cowards at heart and may be credited with a pretty safe instinct in scenting their prey.

Nora: "How do you feel?" Nick: "Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober.

I almost stand in awe when I think of Joseph Smith. The angel appeared to him in 1823 - he said to this simple little boy, 'Your name should be known for good and evil throughout the entire world.'

Actually in the moment in which the idea has life, when it's listened to read, engaged with, acted on stage, it gains another dimension, it becomes three dimensional.

I am whelmed, and not overly whelmed, just whelmed about a lot of facets in life - just how fragile life is and the different challenges you have in life, phobias about things.

I think more than anything, I think I'd really like to start producing and be in charge of the stuff that I want to see in the world and the stuff that interests me.

With peaks of joy and valleys of heartache, life is a roller coaster ride that's both scary and exciting at the same time - the rise and fall of which defines our journey.