What if things happened to you—special, magic things—because you’d been preparing for them?

Storytelling wasn't about making things up. It was more like inviting the stories to come through her, let themselves be told.

The world was full of dangers now that she was pregnant: mercury in tuna, hot tubs, beer, secondhand smoke, over-the-counter medicine. Not to mention crazy baby-abducting fairy kings.

She closed her eyes. Said the four most comforting words she knew: "Once upon a time." An incantation.

Oh my God!” Sam said again, his voice shaking. I’ve given birth to something inhuman, Phoebe thought. A lamprey with row after row of teeth.

When the future is fogged and ahead lays opportunity but risk, it is better to tread a careful path through the uncertainty than to wait for the mist to clear, if it ever does.

I fear I have praised you too much too soon. Will I lose you in your shame of believing that you can never be what I think you are?

Scream at God if that's the only thing that will get results.

Would You Wear My Eyes?

By His trials, God means to purify us, to take away all our self-confidence, and our trust in each other, and bring us into implicit, humble trust in Himself.

From a historical viewpoint, religion is just a kind of superstition, and from a political viewpoint it is a tool of social control.

There's truth even in tainted knowledge, if one reads carefully.

If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it around. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it.

Fifty years ago wealth was stored and transmitted physically through gold bars, stock certificates, bank notes, and coins.

I always believe that my films should give some hope to the man who comes to watch them for those three hours. If he goes home on an optimistic note, I would feel satisfied at having done my duty.