As one gets older, this question of death, becomes more vexing and urgent.

I don't like that new age posture where you kind of tilt your head. I don't like that posture right now. I want something a little more confident and more sure of the values that we're defending, which are the old ones, love and empathy and patience and tolerance and civility. Not to get into politics or anything.

The greatest thing about writing a book is that at first it's all inchoate, but the more you work on it, the more the book teaches you its internal rules.

The internet kind of feels like happiness sometimes, however. It feels like stimulation.

You can say you're a liberal and everybody laughs and it's a good time.

If you have a friend, what's the best way you can experience her beauty? It's to really accept her. She's weird in this way, I accept it. She's hard to talk to, I accept it. Then that person eventually will come all the way out into the sun. I think it's the same way with our talent. We say, "Look, I'm not going to judge you. I'm going to try to use you in the very best way."

I love the feeling of being on the hunt - the feeling that the story is refusing to be solved in some lesser way and is insisting that you see it on its highest terms.