I do feel that if you can write one good sentence and then another good sentence and then another, you end up with a good story.

Just because you have stopped sinking doesn't mean you're not still underwater.

We can only die in the future, I thought; right now we are always alive.

Sometimes a flat-footed sentence is what serves, so you don't get all writerly: 'He opened the door.' There, it's open.

They say the smart dog obeys but the smarter dog knows when to disobey.

Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.

Wear your heart on the page, and people will read to find out how you solved being alive.

In my head there's a broken balcony I fall off of when I speak.

if it's true your life flashes past your eyes before you die, then it is also the truth that your life rushes forth when you are ready to start to truly be alive.

I sleep with a glass of water on the nightstand so I can see by its level if the coastal earth is trembling or if the shaking is still me.

I want to know everything about you, so I tell you everything about myself.

If reason ruled the world would history even exist?

The advantage of travel is that after a while you begin to realize that wherever you go, most people aren't really all that much different.

The hard fact is that writing is available to readers because of market factors as much as particular writing talent.

There is nothing spiritual about a marriage that uses guilt, blame, shame or religious manipulations to keep a relationship together.

The only difference between me and a madman is that he has the certification

It's cheaper to buy a house and finance it than it is to rent in many markets.

I'm drawn to this range, that's for sure, but I suppose the thing that most appeals to me about Mandelstam is the sense you get from every poem that everything - the poet's very soul - is at stake.

The greatest gift that an actor can have is good scripts because then you're relieved of the responsibility of trying to elevate the material.

Things are entirely what they appear to be and behind them... there is nothing.

I would argue that stupidity is born out of bad reading, bad teaching and bad thinking!