Richard Shindell works impressive alchemy with the plainest, most primal American pop melodies.

So much of reading and writing to me is about being elsewhere, no matter how much I love where I am.

Every time I fall in love with a book, I just feel grateful and thrilled to have it in my life.

Love the work: the grind, the dreaming, the distracted not-sleep, all of it.

The ghosts that exert the most power in people’s lives-at least, the people I know–tend to be of their own making, and consist of equal parts regret and old fears and just plain missing somebody.

Love the work: the grind, the dreaming, the distracted not-sleep, all of it. It’s the one thing in the job that will always be there, and the real pleasure in the profession. Everything else is luck.

Believing in negative thoughts is the single greatest obstruction to success.

Putting yourself in the place of others...is what thinking ethically is all about.

Concealed talent brings no reputation.

Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.

Far too many young people today have no spiritual roots. The've been deprived of values by an agnostic, contemporary culture.

I've suffered from pretty dark depressing times, and it's probably - not probably - it is the reason why I chose to lead a healthy lifestyle.

A couple of guys won Academy Awards for the things that I turned down. Today, after coming to terms with everything, after being in therapy for a long time-there are areas where I will compromise.

There are many people who think I'm actually a gangster or a mafioso, largely because of 'Goodfella'.

Children need encouragement like plants need water

Untilled soil, however fertile it may be, will bear thistles and thorns; so it is with man's mind.