When you do something that's going to speak to people, it's going to be because you're really allowing all of yourself to the table in an accepting way.

I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar.

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.

Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.

According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.

It's a big world, and I really like it.

Character is that sum total of moments we can't explain.

The generalizing writer is like the passionate drunk, stumbling into your house mumbling: I know I'm not being clear, exactly, but don't you kind of feel what I'm feeling?

Kindness, it turns out, is hard - it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include . . . well, EVERYTHING.

It's not worth it to build castles on the sand if they get destroyed by the waves of reality.

While winners were fully engaged with writing some great chapters in their lives, failures were busy trying to edit their past negative experiences.

All happiness depends on courage and work. I have had many periods of wretchedness but with energy and above all with illusions I pulled through them all.

All things which are similar and therefore connected, are drawn to each other's power.

The United States is the only country with a known birthday.

That which has a beginning will surely have an end.

Hey, God made us sexual creatures. If he wanted teenagers to wait that long, he would have made puberty start at twenty-five.

Consult not your fears, but your hopes and your dreams.

Your setback is just a setup for your comeback.

Despite what some would have us believe, success is not built on resentment and fear.