People are usually pretty hungry after a funeral. I guess it's because we all realize that time is running out and we better eat all we can. Please don't mention that to my mother.

In a cement park across the street is this giant sculpture. It is a giant umbrella frame lying on its side. It's green. Stand under it, during a rainstorm, you'll still get wet - that's why it's art.

I feel like there's a certain kind of laughter missing in the world.

I don't want to write my life. I live my life. I want to make up a new world.

I want to write stories that don't help you escape life, but embrace life.

There is nothing more depressing than toast that no one eats.

People love conversation, and movies are conversations, and an audience has to participate; it has to fill in some blanks.

I spent so many years trying to become an actor, trying to be a person that I wasn't.

I want to make accessible movies for bright people, but I don't want to play games and be coy.

The bigger the budget, the less an audience is trusted, and that's the difference between a big-budget film and a small-budget film.

My job as a dramatist is to find out where these characters want to go, and make it as hard as possible for them to get there.

We are made wholeBy books, as by great spaces and the stars

Is the healing process the writing or the reading of that writing?What are we all healing from? Ourselves?What are we all healing towards? Ourselves?

Those who fail to understand mystery are doomed to crack it

When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books. You will be reading meanings.

They want to cook you and eat you, " she said distatefully, "which is ridiculous. You'd taste terrible.""Thank you, grandmother.

The names of the plants ought to be stable [certa], consequently they should be given to stable genera.

I have a very strong record on the Environment in the United States Senate.

If people mean that man has in himself the power to work in partnership with God's grace they are most wretchedly deluding themselves.

Past experience with fiscal austerity at home and overseas strongly suggests that it is best for the economy's long-run performance to restrain government spending rather than raise taxes.

I was asked what I thought about the recession. I thought about it and decided not to take part.