The facts didn't matter. Their stories mattered, and each of their stories belonged to each of them alone.

I suspect the most we can hope for, and it's no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love.

Traits don't change, states of mind do.

I actually see myself in all my characters. In order to imagine what it feels like to be another person I have to use my own experiences and responses to the world.

Had they known at these moments to be quietly joyful? Most likely not. People mostly did not know enough when they were living life that they were living it.

You surely know that in the course of a long marriage it is not unusual for a husband or a wife to develop a crush on someone else.

I'm so interested in the fact that we really don't know anybody. We think we know the people close to us, but we don't, we really don't.

In a way, I'm very interested in writing about Maine, because I think Maine represents its own kind of history. It's the oldest state, and it's the whitest state.

People like to think the younger generation's job is to steer the world to hell. But it's never true, is it? They're hopeful and good - and that's how it should be.

Or maybe, he thought, returning to the boxes, it was part of being Catholic--you were made to feel guilty about everything

I do write by hand. I just think - I don't know, it's a physical thing for me. It's a bodily thing. It literally has to earn its way through my hand.

I gulped, mesmerized by his hypnotic eyes and charming, spearmint smile, and uttered something intelligent like, "Uh, huh." ~ from Dragon Flight

Where wise actions are the fruit of life, wise discourse is the pollination.

Yeah, 'cause you're just another vehicle goin' by and by.

She had gained a reputation for beauty, and (which is often another thing) was beautiful.

Don't let your wounds make you become someone you're not.

The man grinned back at me with that perfect sincerity we fear and call simple-minded.

Direct cinema is about simulating a reality in which you're not having the overwhelming influence that you really are having.

I would predicate that in all great works of genius masculine and feminine elements in the personality find expression, whether this androgynous nature is played out sexually or not.

Republican primary voters, whether they're close primaries or open, are voting for anybody but candidates attached to the Republican establishment.

After a lifetime of losing and gaining weight, I get it. No matter how you slice it, weight loss comes down to the simple formula of calories in, calories out.