Humanity has this need to hear stories because they connect us with other people, they teach us about our own feelings. We feel less lonely when we see other people going through the same things, even if they're fictional characters.

I was a lousy journalist. I could never be objective. Sometimes I invented the whole story.

Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me.

It's such an intimate and profound relationship that it cannot be unconditional. I can only compare the intimacy of sex with the intimacy of the mother with a newborn baby. But with a newborn baby, it is unconditional.

Give, give, give - what is the point of having experience, knowledge or talent if I don't give it away? Of having stories if I don't tell them to others? Of having wealth if I don't share it? I don't intend to be cremated with any of it! It is in giving that I connect with others, with the world and with the divine.

Cooking can be like foreplay.

fiction happens in the belly, it doesn't happen in the brain.