I really think that if there's any one enemy to human creativity, especially creative writing, it's self-consciousness.

I think the deeper you go into questions, the deeper or more interesting the questions get. And I think that's the job of art.

One of the things I learned about writing a memoir is you can’t drag the reader through everything. Every human life is worth 20 memoirs.

I see a lot of marriages crash and burn around me and my wife. I've always been curious about how hard it is to love well and be loved.

Fear is a ghost; embrace your fear, and all you’ll see in your arms is yourself.

As a matter of writing philosophy, if there is one, I try not to ever plot a story. I try to write it from the character's point of view and see where it goes.

I've learned over the years that the writing is smarter and far larger than the writer and his or her own desires for it.

I have always known that writing fiction had little effect on the world; that if it did, young men would not have gone to war after The Iliad.

Somewhere, sometime I'd stopped expecting my father to father.

I read poetry every day. I love the boiled down essence of poetry. I look for poetry in prose. In a way that evocative.

What is art if not a concentrated and impassioned effort to make something with the little we have, the little we see?

The culture were live in ripples through our daily lives, sending messages about what is considered "normal" and healthy by society.

That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.

To whom should propaganda be addressed? To the scientifically trained intelligentsia or the less educated masses? It must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses.

Evil people you never forget them. And that's the aim of any actress-never to be forgotten.

SARS is just made up by the Government of the United States!

Trust your actors. That's why I work with the same actors time and time again. I encourage them to change the dialogue to achieve one thing: keep the characters honest.

The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom-they are the pillars of society.

In most industries, technological change is happening at a rapid rate.

They thought I was a success as soon as I started paying the bills.

I think so much about everything. I'm obsessive.