Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

no one ever got radicalized by being grateful

In almost any situation, if you have been the powerful one, which would tend to be men more than women but not always, it's very important to listen as much as you talk. If you have been the less powerful one, it's very important to talk as much as you listen.

Writers are notorious for using any reason to keep from working: over-researching, retyping, going to meetings, waxing the floors - anything.

It would help not to treat age as if it were any less of a pleasure than it was when we were six and saying, 'I'm six and a half.' You know, we could be saying, 'I'm fifty and a half' and say it with joy. Each age is different and has different discoveries and pleasures.

I live in the land of delight - of just walking in the street, and the sun is shining, and I'm on my way to Starbucks and I'm feeling good. I also live for those aha! moments when you understand something new, when you see two things fitting together to make a surprising third. There's actually a chemical that's produced in the brain by learning that gives you that little ecstatic moment of, Oh, that's why.

[On the Internet and activism:] The danger of the Internet is cocooning with the like-minded online - of sending an email or twitter and confusing that with action - while the real corporate and military and government centers of power go right on. In a way, the highest purpose of the Internet is to bring us together for empathy and action. After all, the reflector cells and empathy-producing chemicals in our brains only work when we're physically together with all five senses. You can't raise a baby online.