This whole literary game of trying to put yourself in the shoes of your opponent is good for everybody. It leaves you more open-hearted, it gives you a more accurate vision of the other person, because it's more based on curiosity than projection. In the end if you do have to fight, you're better equipped to fight. Also it doesn't leave you damaged at the end, it doesn't leave you hateful or malformed by your own anger.

When you do something that's going to speak to people, it's going to be because you're really allowing all of yourself to the table in an accepting way.

When I write I know that I'm going to have to produce 40 percent more than I need.

One of the inspiring things about Susan Sarandon career is that there's a quality of real fearlessness in it - you seem to be in it for the challenge and the experience.

I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar.

There's this de facto assumption that for something to have value, it has to be economically self-supporting - which imposes a very low ceiling on a culture.

The millions or billions of micro decisions that you're going to make, that's what will determine who you are as a writer, not you deciding in advance.