Like a lot of writers, I just got sick to death of conventional fiction. I absolutely couldn't stand the illusion of reality and plot. I just couldn't stomach it.

Teaching writing puts you on the point of a pin in terms of what you want your own writing to be.

I sometimes think that we expect too much resolution in this world.

Early in the phase of being in a female body, there's all this desire that comes at you, a lot of it hostile, a lot of it dangerous, a lot of it ruinous.

I do some messing around with things, not necessarily about me but about place and people and the things around.

I grew up flying over oceans and moving and sailing.

There's a lot of water in everything I've ever written. There's always oceans and pools.

You can sometimes find something good on the other side of doing something very, very painful.

In order to have a real life of any romance, there has to be a level of fantasy.

I don't think you can have an imagination without having fantasy, and you can't have that rich a life without an imagination.

That's what perfect means. You're finished.

Are your convictions so fragile that mine cannot stand in opposition to them? Is your God so illusory that the presence of my Devil reveals his insufficiency?

He who molds the public sentiment... makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.

It's very tiring, being so old. But I do love living.

The life of the arts is far from an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is close to the center of a nation's purpose-and is a test of the quality of a nations' civilization.

Everything looks beautiful in Life of Pi.

When I first wanted to be a writer, I learned to write prose by reading poetry.

Whoever expects to walk peacefully in the world must be money's guest.

The hard thing is getting people to come to the theater to see something, no matter if it's good or not.

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.

The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable.