That's what the American odyssey is really about: Leaving home. Leaving home and coming home, and trying to understand the difference.

In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? An optimist laughs to forget, but a pessimist forgets to laugh.

I come from very common stock, and I've always been uncomfortable with pretension and all the forms it can take, including disingenuous broadcasting.

You can make a new friend but you can't make an old one.

In the America I see from here, anything is possible - especially the impossible.

Mine is not a story to tell struggling writers.

Americans are generally very self-sufficient and I think generally averse to pretension, just as I am.

Professor Al Drake encouraged me to just write the way I talk. I decided if that's what I needed to do, I didn't need to be in school to do it.

Like most Alaska immigrants, my roots continue to petition for equal time.

In my case, I was not frightened in the least bit at the thought that I might live because I was certain, quite certain, that I was already dead.

Art can lead you to God. I think that's the purpose of everything. If it's not doing that, what's it doing? It's leading you the other way. It's certainly not leading you nowhere.

I find it hard to imagine how someone listens to my stuff, or views what I do, or me, or anything.

Lucky is the man who has been successful with his children and not got ones who are notorious disasters.

Love wins when everything else will fail.

Marketing is for companies who have sucky products.

I invest in funds myself even though I run my own fund for my daughters.

I do a great deal of research, especially in the apartments of tall blondes.

Marriage is an economic arrangement in many ways, let's face it.

I have no complaints with the whole childhood acting thing, because I wanted to do it.