There was no such thing as perfect privacy, life was a perpetual concert-hall recital with a captive audience.

...the face has limited space. My mother used to say, if you fill your face with laughing, there will be no more room for crying.

The whole quilt is much more important than any single square.

Birth and death - what could be more monstrous than that? We like to deceive ourselves and call it wondrous and beautiful and majestic, but it's freakish, let's face it.

...you have to use your failures as stepping stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end it’s all a question of balance.

I think a lot about the past, it's true. But at my age, the past is more present than the here and now. And there is not much percentage in the future.

Everyone underestimates their own life. Funny thing is, in the end, all our stories...they're the same. In fact, no matter where you go in the world, there is only one important story: of youth, loss and yearning for redemption. So we tell the same story, over and over. Only the details are different.