I love theater. I love sitting in an audience and having the actors right there, playing out what it means to be a human being.

I suspect the most we can hope for, and it's no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love.

Traits don't change, states of mind do.

I actually see myself in all my characters. In order to imagine what it feels like to be another person I have to use my own experiences and responses to the world.

The facts didn't matter. Their stories mattered, and each of their stories belonged to each of them alone.

Had they known at these moments to be quietly joyful? Most likely not. People mostly did not know enough when they were living life that they were living it.

You surely know that in the course of a long marriage it is not unusual for a husband or a wife to develop a crush on someone else.

I'm so interested in the fact that we really don't know anybody. We think we know the people close to us, but we don't, we really don't.

In a way, I'm very interested in writing about Maine, because I think Maine represents its own kind of history. It's the oldest state, and it's the whitest state.

People like to think the younger generation's job is to steer the world to hell. But it's never true, is it? They're hopeful and good - and that's how it should be.

Or maybe, he thought, returning to the boxes, it was part of being Catholic--you were made to feel guilty about everything

She wrote love with her smile and magic with her eyes.

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible

Don't matter if you believe in them or not. If they're there, they're there, ' Mrs. Phipps said.

They say love and hate are closely tied, that they can turn at a moment’s notice.

Because you’re beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence.

President Obama is sending troops back to Iraq. He said, 'Don't worry, we should not be there any longer than a Kardashian marriage.'

As a matter of fact, I didn't make a political speech outside of my state for 20 years.

The hero, therefore, is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations.

I always tell the truth, Stella replies. Although I sometimes confuse the facts.

Bread without love is like grass without salt -- the stomach may be filled, but it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.