Can you see me? All of me? Probably not. No one ever really has.

That’s how people live, by telling stories. What’s the first thing a kid says when he learns how to talk? “Tell me a story.” That’s how we understand who we are, where we come from. Stories are everything.

Pregnancy humbles husbands. After an initial rush of male pride they quickly recognise the minor role that nature had assigned them in the drama of reproduction.

that since Cecilia’s suicide, the Lisbon’s could hardly wait for the night to forget themselves in sleep

Children learn to speak Male or Female the way they learn to speak English or French.

The worst thing about religion was religious people.

When I'm creating a character, it's a little bit like what my theater teachers used to tell me about Stanislavsky, like if you're using sense memory to do a scene - if you have to cry in a scene, you try to remember something in your life that made you cry and you use that in order to get the tears.