It is very easy for us to go, you know, "I am being cruel to be kind," when really we are just ... being cruel. Because it makes us feel big, or whatever.

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.

First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love.

Divide the target in proportion to the available resources

There is no crisis to which academics will not respond with a seminar.

You kind of invite a little spooky, creepy vibe into your whole experience of making a movie.

If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers.

No client ever had money enough to bribe my conscience or to stop its utterance against wrong, and oppression.

The practice of love can be expressed in one sentence: 'Do not harm others.'

Love of country follows from the exercise of its freedoms, not from pride in its fleets or its armies.

It'is like a book, I think, this bloomin' world.

To go to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes