"The Lucky One" is at its heart a romance novel, elevated however by Nicholas Sparks' persuasive storytelling. Readers don't read his books because they're true, but because they ought to be true.

The right really dominates radio, and it's amazing how much energy the right spends telling us that the press is slanted to the left when it really isn't. They want to shut other people up. They really don't understand the First Amendment.

Going to a movie so you won't be offended is like eating potato chips made with Olestra; you avoid the dangers of the real thing, but your insides fill up with synthetic runny stuff.

Movies are like a machine that generates empathy.

If your religion doesn't respect the rights of other religions, it is lacking something.

Low self esteem involves imagining the worst that other people can think about you.

When we go to the movies, we identify with the characters we see. That's why we go to the movies; we have a voyeuristic experience; we have an out of the body experience. The screen is more real than our thoughts are at the moment we are looking at the film and we place ourselves in the place of the people on the screen, and when they behave nobly, it makes us feel noble, when they are sad and when they have lost love, we feel sad; we can identify with that.