Comic strips introduced me to metaphors. They are pure metaphor, so you learn how to tell a story with symbols, which is a very valuable thing to learn. And I learned that from motion pictures, too, and from poetry. Poetry is mainly metaphor. If it doesn't have a metaphor, it doesn't work.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

For about 150 days a year in Venice, the sun doesn't show through the mist until noon.

Do what you love, don't do anything else.

Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.

And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right.

Journalism keeps you planted in the earth.