Writing and reading and speaking with specificity and skill has never seen more important to me than it does at this moment. It's what's between us and chaos.

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.

The other day, we went somewhere, and did something.

Age is of no importance unless you are a cheese.

I've always been into cars. Cars are part of our genetic makeup. It's unavoidable.

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt; We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?

Patience mimics the power of infinity.

I love 'The Killing', I love 'Homeland' and 'Mad Men', all those shows that lean into the tone of things.

Thats usually what I gravitate to, I read The Perfect Storm, then I read Into Thin Air .

America is a fortunate country. She grows by the follies of our European nations.

There are some problems that technology can't solve.

The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion.