I feel like really thinking about art and really appreciating it and learning the language of it just makes you more of a connoisseur. I believe that.

Once you use a toothbrush to clean a pencil sharpener, you should no longer use it to clean your teeth.

Just because something makes you smile or laugh ... doesn't mean it's a joke.

I don't even drink Coke. It tastes like robot sweat.

I like to do things that are new, where I feel the sense of discovery.

I wanted to get paid to sharpen pencils originally just because I thought it would be fun.

I felt really conflicted about making money off stuff that's creatively satisfying.

The way you make money is to do something you don't like to do. And that's how you know you're a virtuous person.

Everyone has pencils in their house, no matter how hip and contemporary they are.

It would be amazing to tell my grandchildren, like, 'Yeah, I was paid to sharpen 1,000 pencils.'

The type of pop culture that is honestly very moving and powerful to me is [when artists] do their homework. They make it real.

How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of "green"?

Tell me again, exactly what Dr. Thorn said.""Um, I hate middle school dances.""No, no. After that.

Scratch a lover, and find a foe.

I know my choices will be creative so long as I follow my heart.

I did think reviewers were supposed to be polite about story collections - collections are rather delicate creatures in the literary environment - but not everybody got this memo, I guess.

Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink.

I'll be a flop in movies. Besides, I don't like 'em, and I never did believe there was a place called Hollywood. Somebody made it up!

Imagine what Ivanka Trump life has been like? She's been eaten alive by the media. I have empathy for that.

Even in the meanest sorts of labor, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony the instant he sets himself to work.

The old priest Peter Gilligan Was weary night and day; For half his flock were in their beds, Or under green sods lay.