Tragedy is one of the larger prices we pay for being alive. No one ever sidesteps tragedy. It is always there, shadowing us.

But what we can never do is change the story that has made us what we are. It's a story completely dictated by the accumulation of life's manifold complexities—its capacity for astonishment and horror, for sanguinity and hopelessness, for pellucid light and the most profound darkness. We are what has happened to us.

We don't like admitting this, but it is a key component of human existence: the fact that life has the potential for things both wondrous and horrific.

From Graham Greene, I learnt how to be an accessible writer who grapples with our doubts as sentient individuals.

There is much to be said for solitude.

If there is an abiding theme in 'The Pursuit of Happiness,' it is the idea that you come into the world already shaped by other people's past histories.

Success is a very fragile veneer. I get wary of people who embrace celebrity. It ruins people.