Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility.

It's gotten to a point where everybody is concerned about their rights and nobody is concerned about their duties.

But sometimes it's like you just meet someone and you just know that you're totally connected, and this person is, like, your brother - or your sister. Even if they don't, like, recognize it, you feel it. And in a lot of ways it don't matter if they do or they don't see that for what it is - all you can do is put the feeling out there. That's your duty. Then you just wait and see what comes back to you. That's the deal.

You don't come to live here unless the delusion of a reality shaped around your own desires isn't a strong aspect of your personality. A reality shaped around your own desires - there is something sociopathic in that ambition.

150 years ago in [Charles] Dickens's time there was at least a sense of craft. So some of the things people had inside of them, they had the possibility of expressing in the making of things - even in a daily way with their clothes or their food. People made a good deal of both themselves. Now our daily lives are almost all consumption. Craft plays a tiny role.

First rule of writing: When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.

We cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention.