I've always operated with a great deal of self-doubt. Every time I start a new book it's like, well, this one will destroy the career and I have to overcome that feeling especially in the first hundred pages of the book.

Books had shown me, however, that all people everywhere wanted their lives to have purpose and meaning. This longing was universal.

Literary fiction, as a strict genre, is all but dead. Meanwhile, most genres flourish.

Loss is the hardest thing, I said. But it's also the teacher that's the most difficult to ignore.

To a predator, fear indicates weakness.

One of the things I like enormously about Bob Weinstein is that that he's the only studio head I have ever known who will change his mind and say he was wrong.

Do as little harm to others as you can; make any sacrifice for your true friends; be responsible for yourself and ask nothing of others; and grab all the fun you can. Don't give much thought to yesterday, don't worry about tomorrow, live in the moment, and trust that your existence has meaning even when the world seems to be all blind chance and chaos. When life lands a hammer blow in your face, do your best to respond to the hammer as if it had been a cream pie.