In a certain way, we're always toggling back and forth between the absolute and the relative, if that makes sense.

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.

It is less about becoming a better person, and more of being better, as a person.

Let others think what they like: for me, the culmination of life consists of a pure and subtly dramatic passion.

The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can "prove" anything from it.

There are people who take rumors and embellish them in a way that can be devastating. And this pollution has to be eradicated by people in our business as best we can.

If we stop learning today, we stop teaching tomorrow.

I don't think that any great issue ever gets resolved. I think we outgrow them.

There are no drive-thru breakthroughs. Breakthroughs take time.

As paredes tem ouvidos. (Portuguese: The walls have ears.)

The value of money is that with it we can tell any man to go to the devil. It is the sixth sense which enables you to enjoy the other five.

If the Bible and the microscope do not agee, the microscope is wrong