It's one thing to be a perfectionist when you're alone, but when you're trying to make it work in an ensemble that's a whole different deal.

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.

Words disappear in the air, but writing remains. If you want something to be remembered about you, write it down

The worst way to miss someone is to have them sitting right next to you and know you can never have them.

Hey, Tracy you army brat, I think it’s for you!

I love looking up at the stars because they make me believe that some things in this world are permanent.

I love making new friends and I respect people for a lot of different reasons.

Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be.

Better see rightly on a pound a week than squint on a million.

None of us really know where we're going.

You cannot conceive how I ache to be with you: how I would die for one hour.

Violence can succeed, as Americans know well from the conquest of the national territory. But at terrible cost. It can also provoke violence in response, and often does.