My books are elegiac in the sense that they're odes to a nation that even I sometimes think may not exist anymore except in my memory and my imagination.

At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious.

And there comes a time in your life when you realize that if you don't take the opportunity to be happy, you may never get another chance again.

People sometimes get in the habit of being loyal to a mistake.

You use simple brushstrokes in a screenplay for things over which you would take much greater pains in a novel.

Have you ever noticed that when people use the expression 'I have to say', what follows usually needn't be said?

What if all everybody needed in the world was to be sure of one friend? What if you were the one, and you refused to say those simple words?

Worse, I have to admit to feeling the jealousy of one crab for another that has managed to climb out of the barrel.

Bookstores, like libraries, are the physical manifestation of the wide world's longest, most thrilling conversation.

I was the one who did come through that door. You were the one she was waiting for.

Go to it. Be bold. Be true. Be kind. Rotate your tires. Don't drink so much. There aren't going to be enough liver transplants to go around.

Keep dreaming.If you stop dreaming, you stop living.

Any empathic person who knows how valuable time is will think twice before wasting another person's time, because losing time is losing a part of your life.

Sometimes serendipity is just intention unmasked.

We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its urgency, 'here and now' without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point-blank.

Some history-making is intentional; much of it is accidental.

The camera is your way to see what you want to see - it's an extension of the director's fantasy. I'm executing my personal fantasy, whether it's a fantasy of pleasure or of pain and fear.

It's not the elements of our worship that are awesome. It's the object of our worship Who is awesome.

Wherefore, if meat causeth my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh for evermore, that I cause not my brother to stumble.

Take this wealth and this fame, always stay humble, keep your family close, and do ridiculously crazy things.

They hit you with a knife, you find a gun