I've always felt you unearth story, like you're on an archeological dig.

The greatest story commandment is: Make me care.

Use what you know. Draw from it. It doesnt always mean plot or fact. It means capturing a truth from your experiencing it, expressing values you personally feel deep down in your core.

The best stories infuse wonder.

Don't give [the audience] four; give them two plus two.

I never think about the audience. If someone gives me a marketing report, I throw it away.

Loneliness is, I think, people's biggest fear, whether they are conscious of it or not.

Frankly, there isn't anyone you couldn't learn to love once you've heard their story.

That's what great art does - it inspires other artists to do great art, and that's what it should do.

Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty.

Change is fundamental in story. If things go static, stories die.

Time was when much of lawyering consisted (according to turn-of-the-century lawyer and statesman Elihu Root) in "telling would-be clients that they are damned fool's, and should stop.

High station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.

President Obama has lowered taxes more than he has raised them, and they are today lower than they were in President Reagan's time. But you don't hear conservatives crowing about that.

Selfless giving means forgeting about yourself. It means letting go and doing something crazy.

And then there was him, the long and painful love of her life.

To live an art-filled life, one must be willing to try new things & accept that things change.

In television or a movie I bring my own ego and consequently can mess up. In the theatre I learnt very quickly to shut up and listen. Now I am able to get out of my own way.

That's okay, I'm still the Greatest.

Alchemy is really the secret tradition of the redemption of spirit from matter.

For Russia, there is not and there may not be another political option but democracy. However, Russian democracy is... not at all the realization of standards imposed on us from outside.