The most valuable moments and experiences that life has to offer are found only along its most treacherous paths.

You would be amazed by what you can give up, lose, or break, and yet still be a person who gets happy over brownies.

...handsome people are always interesting to watch. But a handsome person in crisis is riveting.

You need to grab your dream out of the sky like it's a kite and pinch the string through your fingers until you reach the spool.

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.

I can't tell you how much I love Target and Costco, that kind of culture, because it's something I never felt a part of. I've always felt like a tourist because I have never fit in anywhere.

Should I just sit down, right here at carousel seven, and shake until somebody's arms are around me and they're saying, 'It's okay, I'm here, I'm here, come with me to the institute.

You are allowed to be alive. You are allowed to be somebody different. You are allowed to not say goodbye to anybody or explain a single thing to anyone, ever.

His laugh is made if porch swings and lemonade

But I can also write in crappy motel rooms, while standing in line, or sitting in the dentist's chair.

I wouldn't want to waste any of my brain cells on forgiving if it's holding me back.

Those dreams seem very simple to me now, a crude, crayon-drawn picture by a wistful child. But the beauty of impossible dreams is that they are impossible - the hows and whens don't really matter.

There are only three types of citizenship: hero, villain, nobody.

I'd like to think that we strive in film and theatre to tell great stories, and I believe in the power of storytelling in our culture.

Before bed, I read a book or flip on the radio - I'm not picky, I'll just turn it on and see what comes up. I burn a yummy lavender- scented candle.

I had to learn my faith and look after my family, and I had to make priorities. But now I've done it all and there's a little space for me to fill in the universe of music again.

Everything since Homer has improved, except poetry.

I maintain that Western popular culture at its best is worthy of respect and should be cherished as much as the operas of Wagner.

I love people who are complicated, and I love playing people who are complicated.

At a minimum, in explaining evolutionary pathways through time, the constraints imposed by history rise to equal prominence with the immediate advantages of adaptation.