Success is like a mountain in front of you that keeps growing. If you're not careful, it will take up your whole life.

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.

Your net worth depends on your added value

THE AMPUTATED HEARTBEATS HARDER

If I could make one wish, I wouldn't ask for world peace. I'd wish for a real zombie apocalypse. I'll take Romero zombies any day over this counterfeit harmony bullshit.

Stir not murky waters if you know not the depth or the creatures that dwell beneath the surface.

As much as you do get beat-up doing even small action sequences, it's incredibly fun.

News isn't designed to talk about daily life in its nuances, but poetry is.

I really worry about the state of the planet and I wish everyone would make a concerned effort not to trash it.

The wars of the twenty-first century will be fought over water.

Success has many fathers, failure many sons.

When you become an artist you're working away from home for so much time. You really see what the use of time means to you once you're an artist and you travel so much.