Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn.

I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.

I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.

As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.

No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.

I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

Even hell will give you an incentive not to reach for heaven.

Whether it be a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a peace process, there is no sure-fire do-it-yourself kit.

When I choose a role it's either because I recognise the man, or that I'm very curious to know him. If I neither recognise nor know him, then it is better that I don't play him.

Perspective is what allows us to step back and see the entire forest instead of just the same old tree we keep running into again and again.

Some of His children must go into the furnace to testify that the Son of God is there with them.

Country comes before politics.

Nothing is given to you. You're going to have to work for it.

I like the fact that now my understanding for entertainment and the entertainment business is completely different from what it was when I first came in. I get the business side of it.

They're willing to let Matt sit and wait until they believe he's ready and I can't do the best I'm capable of doing. I'm completely comfortable with that.

I am as prompt as a clock, if I only know the day a thing is wanted—otherwise I am a natural procrastinaturalist.