We all talk about how much we hate lies. Yet we prefer, so often, to be lied to....because it allows us to dodge all those painful truths we'd rather not hear.

The only time you truly become an adult is when you finally forgive your parents for being just as flawed as everyone else.

Because there is no meaning to be found in the arbitrary nature of things., It's all random. Just as space is blue. And birds fly through it.

There is much to be said for solitude.

If there is an abiding theme in 'The Pursuit of Happiness,' it is the idea that you come into the world already shaped by other people's past histories.

Tragedy is one of the larger prices we pay for being alive. No one ever sidesteps tragedy. It is always there, shadowing us.

Success is a very fragile veneer. I get wary of people who embrace celebrity. It ruins people.

Words matter, words have import.

I want to be a popular novelist who's also serious, or a serious novelist who's also very accessible.

All our stories are simultaneously unique and desperately similar, aren't they?

I've been known to write on the Underground in London and on the subway in New York. I have two or three cafes in Paris that I go into. I find a corner with a little shade, and I can work.

You are judged many times more by what you do in groups than for what you do as individuals.

Naive inflationism demands an increase in the quantity of money without suspecting that this will diminish the purchasing power of the money.

The challenge of warriorship is to step out of the cocoon, to step out into space, by being brave and at the same time gentle

I think it's beautiful to be able to cover yourself in metal. I love the color and the way it reflects. But it is also a protection.

I've never read for a movie, I've always been given them.

Give, give, give-what is the point of having experience, knowledge or talent if I don't give it away?

It's an honor to win a Grammy, of course.

I'm not a method actress.

If you know each other well, you want to do business with people you know well. You don't do business with strangers.

Kitsch is deep in its superficiality. Art is superficially deep.