The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience members create in their minds, guided and shaped by my text, but then transformed, elucidated, expanded, edited, and clarified by their own experience, their own desires, their own hopes and fears.

Humanity does not ask to be happy.It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, and then happiness as we can manage it... Take what pleasure you can in the interstices of your work, , but your work is first, learning first, winning is everything because without it there is nothing.

I don't hate you, I love you, you're part of myself, you're my heart and when you go it's my heart torn out and carried away--

I learned to separate the story from the writing, probably the most important thing that any storyteller has to learn-that there are a thousand right ways to tell a story, and ten million wrong ones, and you're a lot more likely to find one of the latter than the former your first time through the tale.

Miro, I'm so sorry. I always felt such pity for you humans because you could only think of one thing at a time and your memories were so imperfect and . . . now I realize that just getting through the day without killing somebody can be an achievement." It gets to be a habit. Most of us manage to keep our body count quite low. It's the neighborly way to live.

Of course, I also hear from critics who detest what I do, and while sometimes I feel rather proud of having made various the loathsome people or groups angry, at other times I wonder why I put up with such grief.

Faith doesn't mean you never doubt. It only means you never act upon your doubts.