You know, there's a big world out there filled with desperate orphans who would gladly swim across an ocean of thumbtacks just to be eclipsed by the long shadow that is cast by my accomplishments.

Having a personal philosophy is like having a pet marmoset, because it may be very attractive when you acquire it, but there may be situations when it will not come in handy at all.

I was in a pharmacy and I saw the warnings on the backs of poisonous substances, and I thought, "Well, that's what I can do." So I wrote a list of ingredients in the book, and warnings that they shouldn't consume those ingredients. The editor and the publisher thought that it was a great way to go in terms of reverse psychology, but it honestly hadn't occurred to me that it was reverse psychology. I just thought that it was sort of an honest assessment making clear that if you were timid or easily disturbed, you could turn away.

I have this fantasy that the second movie would begin with a brief statement by all of the young actors who had played the children in the first movie, explaining how it had ruined their lives, so we would catch up with Emily Browning drinking heavily in the back of a burlesque bar, and maybe Liam Aiken would be living underneath a bridge, and then instead of the twins who played Sunny, we would just try to find the oldest woman in the world, and get an interview with her sitting in a trailer park.

...there's nothing wrong with occasionally staring out the window and thinking nonsense, as long as the nonsense is yours.

We are a nation of children letting horrible things happen, and flunking Calc.

It is very easy to say that the important thing is to try your best, but if you are in real trouble the most important thing is not trying your best, but getting to safety.