I've always wanted to write energetic, atypical sentences, i.e., sentences that were not normal or bland.

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.

Once you let the truth loose it is like setting a fire that you can't stop.

We are the authors of our destinies. No one can see the vision any clearer, believe in and work any harder to make it a reality more than the visionary.

If the studios paid the artists, how would they ever be able to afford the executives?

If I were in a position to announce a public competition to coin a new word, I would do so right now.

If two or three agree on a common purpose, nothing is impossible.

An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards.

The ability to forget a sorrow is childhood's most enchanting feature.

We need to empower everybody, not one person, not almost everybody, but everybody.

It is far easier to get divorced from somebody you've been married to for 10 years and have three children by than to fire somebody that's worked for you for one year.

As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers.