We continually use stories to hold up as mirrors to ourselves.

We live in stories. What we are is stories. We do things because of what is called character, and our character is formed by the stories we learn to live in.

The specific danger is us; we are rampant; this earth is our only friend; we are destroying it increment by increment at a horrific rate. We must understand that we can't buy it back.

Writing is a funny business. You sit in your room and listen to voices and write everything down. What kind of a profession is that?

What I wanted was some dreamlike Frank Lloyd Wright bungalow where we could sit on the veranda forever and it would always be twilight in the temperate zones, in the most beautiful house.

Don't worry about meaning. If a story's any good, it can't help but have meaning. Let the PhDs tell you what your story means.

In a story, nothing is real until it is acted upon.

I had discovered a terrible vulnerability I myself which I think of not as cowardliness but as an ability to imagine too much.

They knew bullshit, and they knew about the ruling class; dying for a ruling class cause was almost always bullshit.

One of finest evocations of life in Western America in recent memory... Powerful and profoundly moving.

We must define a story which encourages us to make use of the place where we live without killing it, and we must understand that the living world cannot be replicated.

By the way, the Harry Potter series is literature, in spite of what some people might say. The way J.K. Rowling worked that world out is quite something.

I don't film messages. I let the post office take care of those.

God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.

Architecture has always been a very idealistic profession. It's about making the world a better place and it works over the generations because people go on vacation and they look for it.

I don't want anybody to not recognize how appreciative I am of the volume of e-mails I get.

The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see.

There is graciousness and a kind of urbanity in beginning with men by esteem and confidence. It proves, at least, that we have long lived in good company with others and with our selves.

Don't let anyone tell you that you have to be a certain way. Be unique. Be what you feel.

First, if you love the Kindle and it works for you, it isn't problematic, and you should ignore all my criticisms and read the way you want to read.

Everybody has to be reminded that there's another way to be. Another more mysterious, unpredictable way to be that's not necessarily based upon contrivances.