Our first responsibility in all things is to preserve our goodness of heart - then and only then act.

The idea of inclusion has become kind of a stone that we've passed our hand over so many times that it doesn't mean anything.

I'm a liberal and I'm left of Gandhi and I don't like Trump.

Stories, as much as we like to talk about them, retrospectively, as emanations of theme or worldview or intention, occur primarily as technical objects when they're being written. Or at least they do for me. They're the result of thousands of decisions made at speed during revision.

I'm fascinated with actors, and I've never quite understood the process.

All traditions are also full of meanness for the sake of meanness.

I have a sense that God is unfair and preferentially punishes his weak, his dumb, his fat, his lazy. I believe he takes more pleasure in his perfect creatures, and cheers them on like a brainless dad as they run roughshod over the rest of us. He gives us a need for love, and no way to get any. He gives us a desire to be liked, and personal attributes that make us utterly unlikable. Having placed his flawed and needy children in a world of exacting specifications, he deducts the difference between what we have and what we need from our hearts and our self-esteem and our mental health.