You will have found Christ when you are concerned with other people’s sufferings and not your own.

You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd.

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul.

Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.

...you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.

What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.

[To] know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility . . .

It is the business of the artist to uncover the strangeness of truth

I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.

I use the grotesque the way I do because people are deaf and dumb and need help to see and hear.

Whenever I see an ambulance, I like to think there is a baby being born, rather than a death.

I think that half of us feel fraudulent in our lives anyway. There's that strange disconnect of not really knowing what we're doing sometimes, or why it matters. It's our existential crisis.

I care about the work I do. But I'm not going to say that money's not an issue.

The happier you are, the more apt you are to make a prudent decision.

Music has given me a career. But even if it doesn't become yours it teaches you confidence and allows you to express your creativity.

I would say I try to make my comedy really personal. I try to tell stories that happened to me, experiences from my life.

If at first you don't succeed, you're obviously not me.

Democracy comes naturally to him who is habituated normally to yield willing obedience to all laws, human or divine.

Empathy before education.

My books depend on someone in danger, putting pieces together and figuring things out. They do a lot of thinking, and that gets lost in the movie.