Art makes us feel less alone. It makes us think: somebody else has thought this, somebody else has had these feelings.

To paint comic books as childish and illiterate is lazy. A lot of comic books are very literate - unlike most films.

If you give me a typewriter and I'm having a good day, I can write a scene that will astonish its readers. That will perhaps make them laugh, perhaps make them cry - that will have some emotional clout to it. It doesn't cost much to do that.

Consciousness, unprovable by scientific standards, is forever, then, the impossible phantom in the predictable biologic machine, and your every thought a genuine supernatural event. Your every thought is a ghost, dancing.

I think that the Occupy movement is, in one sense, the public saying that they should be the ones to decide who's too big to fail.

Language comes first. It's not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven't got language, you can't be conscious.

So when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit.