Sometimes I think fiction exists to model the way God might think of us, if God had the time and inclination to do so.

I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar.

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.

Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.

According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.

It's a big world, and I really like it.

Character is that sum total of moments we can't explain.

The generalizing writer is like the passionate drunk, stumbling into your house mumbling: I know I'm not being clear, exactly, but don't you kind of feel what I'm feeling?

Kindness, it turns out, is hard - it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include . . . well, EVERYTHING.

It takes a long time to wake up. That's why it doesn't happen to people who are in a hurry.

I think there's more room for different representations of women within fashion imagery.

I'm glad some people have that faith. I don't have that faith. If there is a God, a caring God, then we have to figure he's done an extraordinary job of making a very cruel world.

She didn't like the fact that she had reduced a man – no matter how evil he might be—to a drooling idiot.

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags that time cannot decay, I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

We rest our case on the production numbers.

The fundamental deception of Satan is the lie that obedience can never bring happiness.

Be yourself, build meaningful relationships, follow your dreams.

That's the thing with independent cinema: They all get good reviews, and they don't make money. Some of them are good. Some are great. And some are terrible.