'1984' is not a wonder tale. Not only could it happen, but it has happened, but under different names.

The problem with meditating is I generally go to sleep, and that's because I'm doing it wrong.

Literature is not only a mirror; it is a map, a geography of the mind.

If I waited for perfection... I would never write a word.

Everybody acts as if they have free will. They act as if they can make these decisions; do they know they don't? I think there's been some back-down on the idea that everything is determined.

The film [Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth] opens with an Albanian blood feud and goes on to delve into, for instance, prison systems, underpaid tomato pickers, the gulf oil spill. It's all woven together in a sensuous, oblique way that's not the same as the single-message kind of documentary we're used to, with an "answer" at the end. It's more like an exploration. Sort of like what you do with Birth of a Nation.

Messy love is better than none, I guess. I am no authority on sane living.