The number of rooms in a fictional house should be inversely proportional to the years during which the couple living in that house enjoyed true happiness.

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.

An entire lifetime can change in one afternoon. The rest of the world can continue on, unaware of a quiet, solitary cataclysm occurring a few feet away.

Summer afternoon—summer afternoon

You are the love, the lover, and the beloved.

I didn't want to play by what rules are in Hollywood.

I don't think nations can stand aside for ethnic cleansing and genocide.

The match has become quite unpredictable, but it still looks as though Arsenal will win the cup

The single most important thing a city can do is provide a community where interesting, smart people want to live with their families.

I find being on set very invigorating. I never have a problem with that component of it, no matter the situation.

The reality is the majority of people are talking about it, but haven't launched it.

There are other places, surely, for other people, but for me there is one place, Ann 
Arbor, for there it was I discovered what lifes bright possibilities were.