I don't mind being criticized intelligently; although I don't love it.

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.

It was a war, and in a war there are always casualties. Never winners, but always plenty of casualties.

The best way to encourage your children is to let them know you are praying for them.

The good news may be that Nature is phasing out the white man, but the bad news is that's who She thinks we all are.

I am the most well-known homosexual in the world.

One of my mottos for living is: never eat on a boat, unless you own the boat.

All poetry and music, and art of every true sort, bears witness to man's continual falling in love with beauty and his desperate attempt to induce beauty to live with him and enrich his common life.

Aerobic dancing is already adjusting to injury problems and will probably phase out to some extent.

Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely.

I'm tired of pretending that everything's fine just so I can please everyone else.

I have always said that the best training to be a TV newsman or anybody on television is to do a children's show because you are oblivious to the fact that there is a camera there.