...a disgruntled reflection on my own life as a sort of desperate improvisation in which I was constantly trying to make something coherent from conflicting elements to fit rapidly changing settings.

We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.

The past empowers the present, and the sweeping footsteps leading to this present mark the pathways to the future.

The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.

What would it be like to have not only color vision but culture vision, the ability to see the multiple worlds of others.

There are few things as toxic as a bad metaphor. You can't think without metaphors.

As you get up in the morning, as you make decisions, as you spend money, make friends, make commitments, you are creating a piece of art called your life.

When parents die, all of the partings of the past are reevoked with the realization that this time they will not return.

The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.

Worlds can be found by a child and an adult bending down and looking together under the grass stems or at the skittering crabs in a tidal pool.

Every loss recapitulates earlier losses, but every affirmation of identity echoes earlier moments of clarity.

You ought to have a vivid picture of what you want.

One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.

Nothing inspires people more than reckless acts of courage.

I would much rather watch myself than listen to myself. The moving is second nature, but the listening... that's the art.

No pleasure is evil in itself; but the means by which certain pleasures are gained bring pains many times greater than the pleasures.

I've always been motivated to be a champion since the age of 13 and I love being a winner.

Confidence is the purity of action produced by a mind free of doubt.

Literary fiction is kept alive by women. Women read more fiction, period.

Post-war filmmakers gave us the documentary, Rob Reiner gave us the mockumentary and Moore initiated a third genre, the crockumentary.

I don't think there's ever a time where I step back and say I wish I was something different. I'm doing what I love to do.