Novels are more difficult simply because they are longer and require more juggling, but short stories are closer to perfection, if you can get the language right.

The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.

I write about what I know; and I write about things that are new to me, and that I didn't know before.

The thing about love is that we come alive in bodies not our own.

Long ago, long ago. The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward.

There are moments we return to, now and always. Family is like water - it has a memory of what it once filled, always trying to get back to the original stream.

There's a part of me that thinks perhaps we go on existing in a place even after we've left it.

We have to admire the world for not ending on us.

It was a silence that heard itself, awful and beautiful.

Give life long enough and it will solve all your problems, including the one of being alive.

Even if people laughed at the notion of goodness, if they found it sentimental, or nostalgic, it didn't matter -- it was none of those things, he said, and it had to be fought for.

Mediocrity will never do. You are capable of something better.

If civilization is to survive, it must live on the interest, not the capital, of nature.

She acts like summer and walks like rain.

Man spends his life in reasoning on the past, in complaining of the present, in fearing future.

So, what's it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don't recommend it.

My taste tends to skew a little bit towards the more feminine. Monique Lhuillier, Oscar de la Renta. Some of his wedding dresses in particular have been spectacular.

There is always a divergence between our perception and what actually exists.

If you want to make a good first impression, smile at people. What does it cost to smile? Nothing. What does it cost not to smile? Everything, if not smiling prevents you from enchanting people.

Catherine Keener really gets me. She and I have such a shorthand together.

I still trust my penalty sytem and will be there when I'll be needed.