I don't think I ever played any sports recreationally for my own pleasure. I was bad at them from the start.

It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.

The most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work.

We're Jews, my family, and Jews break down into two distinct subcultures: book Jews and money Jews. We were money Jews.

Not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap.

You can criticize yourself to a point to do something better, or you criticize yourself to a point where you inhibit yourself.

Great stories happen to those who can tell them.

We live in a world where joy and empathy and pleasure are all around us, there for the noticing.

It takes a while. It's gonna take you a while. It's normal to take a while. You just have to fight your way through that.

You'd think that radio was around long enough that someone would have coined a word for staring into space.

It's not a terribly original thing to say, but I love Raymond Carver. For one thing, he's fun to read out loud.

A goal shouldn't be limited to a title.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

A mode of thought does not become 'critical' simply by attributing that label to itself, but by virtue of its content.

I love physical comedy. I love Oscar Wilde, I love Shakespeare comedies, I love improv.

I live to feel myself in danger.

Don't say, "If I could, I would." Say, "If I can, I will."

My stepfather gave me a Kodak camera when I was 17 years old. I started working at a local photo store in Le Havre, France, taking passport pictures and photographing weddings.

As long as I do not take myself too seriously I should not be too badly off.

The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things... It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.

The writers who have nothing to say, are the ones you can buy, the others have too high a price.