The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness.

If we are to be aware of life while we are living it, we must have the courage to relinquish our hard-earned control of ourselves.

Art is communication.

When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.

We are suspicious of grace. We are afraid of the very lavishness of the gift.

When I am constantly running there is no time for being. When there is no time for being there is no time for listening.

Aeschylus writes, "In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grade of God.

Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.

Reading about the response of people in stories, plays, poems, helps us to respond more courageously and openly at our own moments of turning.

Freedom is a terrible gift, and the theory behind all dictatorships is that "the people" do no want freedom.

To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory.

A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals the secret of some hidden treasure.

You can’t help who you are, but you can change who you want to be.

A true friend is like a soldier that never abandons his partner alone in the battle field”.

For in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle; and one faces down fears of today so that those of tomorrow might be engaged.

I am so happy to be communicating with people on this newest of new wavelengths which to some older people must seem like a kind of magic.

I dont know if im running because i'm scared or if i'm scared because i'm running.

I guess that storytelling would be for me to keep making art that touches people in a way that nothing else can.

It often is a terrible insult to some families if one of the kids turns out to be an artist and that's one way to really shake up the family if you haven't got nerve enough to turn into a homosexual.

There are moments when I can't believe I'm as old as I am. But I feel better physically than I did 10 years ago. I don't think, Oh God, I'm missing something.

I do wait in line, and I do take the subway, and I do my own grocery shopping, and I do take the kids to school. But it almost doesn't matter to a certain segment of the populace.