If you were wise enough to know that this life would consist mostly of letting go of things you wanted, then why not get good at the letting go, rather than the trying to have?

But, like ivy, we grow where there is room for us.

Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into friendship. They can't see the tiny outstretched hands all around them, everywhere, like leaves on trees.

That day I carried the dream around like a full glass of water, moving gracefully so I would not lose any of it.

What a terrible mistake to let go of something wonderful for something real.

I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again.

Don't wait to be sure. Move, move, move.

We come from long lines of people destined never to meet.

... we had once called out hello into the cauldron of the world and then run away before anyone could respond.

Inelegantly, and without my consent, time passed.

I cried in English, I cried in french, I cried in all the languages, because tears are the same all around the world.

To be alive was to be disappointed. You tried and failed and kept on trying, never knowing whether you'd ever get what you wanted. But sometimes we get what we need.

Me I'm just a hack. I'm just a schlep-per. I just do what I can do.

'Intelligent Life' is kind of a companion piece to 'Safety Not Guaranteed.' Internally, it's a sci-fi romantic thriller.

For a short-story writer, a story is the combination of what the writer supposed the story would likely be about - plus what actually turned up in the course of writing.

We can try to reform healthcare, but the fact is if we don't have a healthy food source, we are only treating the symptoms and not the problems.

Now my complaint is there are only 18 hours to work in a day.

People like to pigeonhole you.

The crisis of the 1930s and the populist reactions of that time must not be forgotten.

You can't see the picture when you're in the frame.

It took a couple of hundred million years to develop a thinking ape and you want a smart one in a lousy few hundred thousand?