I don't feel like I have the intelligence to really inhabit a consistently high level of prose.

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.

Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience.

Gods revelation to you is a classified info.

Great bodies die but great minds don't die! Inside the tomb of great men lay dead body's but at the library of great men lay the living minds of dead bodies!

It's philanthropy, but it's good politics, too. Mighty good politics. The poor are some of the most grateful people in the world. George Washington Plunkett.

If you want to call it quits, just tell me. Man up and say it to my face. Don’t just skulk around.

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

Creativity is what helps me escape a lot of my inner demons.

Here is a little forest Whose leaf is ever green; Here is a brighter garden, Where not a frost has been; In its unfading flowers I hear the bright bee hum; Prithee, my brother, Into my garden come!

The one real goal of education is to leave a person asking questions.

so people really do tear out their hair and beat the ground with their fists