We're not keen on the idea of the story sharing its valence with the reader. But the reader's own life "outside" the story changes the story.

I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.

It can become an exercise in trying to get the reader to like and admire you instead of an exercise in creative art.

One of the things that makes Wittgenstein a real artist to me is that he realized that no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism.

If your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything.

I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?

This might be one way to start talking about differences between the early postmodern writers of the fifties and sixties and their contemporary descendants.

How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.

Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.

In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.

Meditation sends us into our ordinary world with greater perspective and balance.

I still believe that many Americans have a deep longing for that glorious moment when a sermon is more Biblical than American.

But once in a while . . . I don't know. I feel so close, Rose. So close to the edge. Like if I allow myself one small misstep, I'll plunge away and never come back. It's like I'll lose myself.

If Christianity is not scientific, and Science is not of God, then there is no invariable law, and truth becomes an accident.

As I've grown as a person and gotten to know myself more - the question of how someone becomes who they become has gotten really interesting to me.

I like that 3D is based on the fact that you look with two eyes, so two cameras imitate that.

It was important that I learn that what I wanted was no different from what other artists wanted: confidence that I could be my own censor, audience, and competition.

Not to oppose erroneous doctrine is to approve of it, and not to defend at all true doctrine is to suppress it.

My art side is free and there are no strings attached.