I don't try and write strong female characters or strong male characters, I just try and write, hopefully, strong characters and sometimes they happen to be female.

There isn't any way for the people of Nicaragua to find out what's going on in Nicaragua.

I consider myself a bassist first.

Like all forms of collective security, multilateral sanctions require a unanimity rarely achieved in international politics.

We used to have more references to things that we pulled out because they almost felt like they were trying too hard to allude to something.

We are human, and nothing is more interesting to us than humanity.

If you are in a bad relationship with anyone else, it is because you are in a bad relationship with yourself.

It's amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable.

I try to push ideas away, and the ones that will not leave me alone are the ones that ultimately end up happening.

Mystery is more important than knowledge.

The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves.

Stories exist to entertain and inspire us. They’re merely veils of hope for when we see the ugliness of the world.

Learn from seeds to rise, no matter how much dirt is thrown at you.

When a thundering horde of drunken Vikings rush a person, it's only natural to flinch.

Poverty is no sin.

Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.

A composition is an arrangement, built out of parts, that aims at seamlessness.

My look is a Modern Bohemian type thing.

I guess the tone of jokes is often, at best, irreverent, but it always comes from a place of deep love.

It's in your hands to make the world a better place.

Confidence is preparation in action.