[F]rank knew he was guilty of arrogance and misanthropy, but he compensated by being kind to strangers and tipping really well at restaurants.

The poetry, if you will, of life is reduced to this sort of dry, scientific, you know, it's the worst sort of précis of who we are.

I end up feeling like a spy in the house of ethnicity, you know? Because people will talk around me as they would talk around the people in their cultural group. So I get to hear all the secrets and jokes and you know, I'm a part of every community because of the way I look.

The problem for me with liberals is that we've abdicated our moral responsibility to the universe.

When you resort to violence to prove a point, you’ve just experienced a profound failure of imagination.

I got in a fight with my girlfriend," I said. "I was just driving around, blowing off steam, you know?" Well, you should be more careful where you drive," the officer said. "You're making people nervous. You don't fit the profile of the neighborhood." I wanted to tell him that I didn't fit the profile of the country but I knew it would just get me into trouble.

...it's like this white-Indian thing has gotten out of control. And the thing with the blacks and the Mexicans. Everybody blaming everybody...I don't know what happened. I can't explain it all. Just look around at the world. Look at this country. Things just aren't like they used to be.' 'Son, things have never been like what you think they used to be.