I feel nervous because I revere [Zadie Smith] so much. I don't want to be stupid. If I say something stupid, just interrupt me.

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.

When creativity is seen as more important than facts, we will find ourselves in a world where problems are solved more often than spoken of.

Social entrepreneurship represents the opportunity to redefine the role of government.

To make it more familiar to me, I ended up treating my swordplay scenes like choreography. So it was, 'One and two and three and four and five, and turn and step and down and up and lunge.

There is a lot of underground type of fighting going on and some of it is not safe, it's pretty brutal. But it's absolutely fascinating.

The first Matrix genius, the second one, what's up with the dancing? I haven't even seen the third one.

The atomic hypothesis which had worked so splendidly in Physics breaks down in Psychics.

I like to play with the conventions around what we expect of paintings historically. But I also like to play with the conventions that you expect from a Kehinde Wiley painting, too.

I understand that I may make mistakes with characters who don't share my own background, but I commit to doing my best.

With respect to those meanings of 'human' that are relevant to the morality of abortion, any fetus is less human than an adult pig.

The wise man then followed a simple way of life-which is hardly surprising when you consider how even in this modern age he seeks to be as little encumbered as he possibly can.