Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them.

I need for there to be something bigger than me. I need someone to put awe inside me; I need to come second to someone who has everything figured out.

I didn't know how story worked. So, when writing the screenplay, people introduced me to the science of it. And I'm grateful. I'll probably use that information for the rest of my career, in terms of writing novels or writing stories. And then, of course, to help me live a better story, a more meaningful story

When we think too much about the opinions of others, we are letting them edit a book God has written.

The most attractive characteristic in a person is the story they are telling the world. We stop and stare at stories.

In an age in which we can project an image and score that image based on immediate Facebook and Twitter feedback, thus making a video game of life and a false-reality composed of lies, what gets lost is a joyful obsession with the work we create from the purest of motives, a sheer joy in the act of creation itself that causes us to lose ourselves in something else, and in a way die to ourselves over the absolute love of a thing we are breathing into life.

I don't read a lot of inspirational books for life. But for writing, I think the two best books are The War of Art and William Zinsser's On Writing Well. I read a lot of classics.