The present has its élan because it is always on the edge of the unknown and one misunderstands the past unless one remembers that this unknown was once part of its nature.

Short stories can be rather stark and bare unless you put in the right details. Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better.

If you're experiencing no anxiety or discomfort, the risk you're taking probably isn't worthy of you. The only risks that aren't a little scary are the ones you've outgrown.

Most people confuse wishing and wanting with pursuing. You must place your trust in action.

Optimism inspires, energizes, and brings out our best. It points the mind toward possibilities and helps us think creatively past problems.

Well, youth is the period of assumed personalities and disguises. It is the time of the sincerely insincere.

No sense being pessimistic. Wouldn't work anyway.

Too much attention on problems kills our faith in possibilities.

The profoundly humorous writers are humorous because they are responsive to the hopeless, uncouth, concatenations of life.

If you must doubt something, doubt your limits.

Your ethical muscle grows stronger every time you choose right over wrong.

There are gifts and talents that have not yet been used and power which has not been applied

Be simple enough to feel the true joy of life.

Don't let your teeth make you lose respect by permanently keeping them opened for the sake of being friendly.

When I play discos in Belfast or freshers' week in Oxford, there are 1, 800 kids dressed as me. It's odd, it's funny, and it pays really well.

It's good to get away from the editing suite. It's very unhealthy to be sitting in front of the screen for too long.

It's easy to become anything you wish . . . so long as you're willing to forfeit your soul.

It seems so lucky to just to have the right of telling you with all my might, you're beautiful tonight.

I discovered, quite early in motherhood, that the longest and most painful deliveries occur when you give birth to stepchildren.

Many think they have a kind heart who have only weak nerves.

What I miss [about church] is being forced to be in community with people that aren't the same as me.