When you have your health, you have everything. When you do not have your health, nothing else matters at all.

Truthfulness itself is almost medication, even when it’s served without advice or insight.

The most important thing for a writer to do is to write. It really doesn't matter what you write as long as you are able to write fluidly, very quickly, very effortlessly. It needs to become not second nature but really first nature to you. And read; you need to read and you need to read excellent books and then some bad books. Not as many bad books, but some bad books, so that you can see what both look like and why both are what they are.

Optimism sprouts from the knowledge that you are in control of your own life, not your past and not those around you. Part of being in control is taking responsibility for how you feel. This means not just admitting to uncomfortable feelings but then examining your circumstances to see what can be done to change these feelings at the source.

I never could have written the screenplay because I would have been forced to learn new software and I can't learn one more thing.

Life would be fabric-softener, tuna-salad-on-white, PTA-meeting normal.

And of course, the answer came to me in the same way Jesus comes to those who drink in trailers: as an epiphany.