I have a lot of theories about the beneficial effects of fiction, but I'm always trying to get away from them a little bit.

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.

Do you have vivid picture of your visions in your mind?

Slayeth the evil that lives inside you, where they are walking the Devil walks too.

It's so warm now, and Thanksgiving came so early - is it just me, or does it not really feel like Ramadan?

It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.

To have a future we have to live and leave the present.

Here’s my mantra: ‘Every mile is a gift.’

The stigma of the prostitute is the badge of her identity. That is why the client goes to her. If he wanted someone without a stigma, he'd go and screw the lady next door.

I think the Freudian impulse is in everything, so I just accept it. I don't always believe what Freud is saying but it sounds like fun.

I’ve learned what ‘classical’ means. It means something that sings and dances through sheer joy of existence.

Although we are Canadian, we have both vowed to remain unmarriad in solidarity with the millions who don't have the same rights as us around the world.