Compassion doesn't have to be weak or enabling; it can also be quite bold.

Character is that sum total of moments we can't explain.

If I find myself being too earnest and sentimental and hyperbolic and simplistic, which is definitely a tendency I have, then I bring in this perverse henchman.

As a writer I'm essentially just trying to impersonate a first-time reader, who picks up the story and has to decide, at every point, whether to keep going.

It is technically very hard to show positive manifestations. But I can look back at the way I thought and felt even as a little kid and there was a lot of wonder there, and openness to the many sides of life.

Success makes opportunities and so many of those "opportunities" are actually exemptions - from hardship, from unfriendliness, from struggle.

Someone told me once - I mean I said, "Is it ok that I don't really know what the three-act structure is?" And he said, "It's basically: Act 1: a guy climbs up a tree; Act 2: people come and throw stuff at him; Act 3: he gets down."