“Divorce transforms habit into drama.”

He pays for his social ease with what used to be called his soul – his discriminations, his uniqueness, his psychic energy, his self.

Despair, in short, seeks its own environment as surely as water finds its own level.

Mass democracy, mass morality and the mass media thrive independently of the individual, who joins them only at the cost of at least a partial perversion of his instincts and insights.

No man kills himself unless there is something wrong with his life.

Now, if, as I think, writing should be, it’s a kind of risky trade.

To put yourself into a situation where a mistake cannot necessarily be recouped, where the life you lose may be your own, clears the head wonderfully.

It puts domestic problems back into proportion and adds an element of seriousness to your drab, routine life.

Hold’em is a game of calculated aggression. If your cards are good enough for you to call a bet, they are good enough to raise with.

Twentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes by virtue of its belief in itself.

Perhaps this is one reason why climbing has become increasingly hard as society has become increasingly, disproportionately, coddling.

Seemed merely a temporary halt on my steady descent through layer after layer of depression, like an elevator stopping for a moment on the way down to the basement.

Since what happened in them was beyond the imagination, it was therefore also beyond art and all those human values on which art is traditionally based.

In the possibility of control over what seems essentially uncontrollable, in the coherence of the inchoate, and in its ability to create its own values.

The real resistance now is to an art which forces its audience to recognize and accept imaginatively.

I absolutely don’t believe in anything. Full stop. Including luck.

The better the artist, the more vulnerable he seems to be.

For me, drama is conflict.

I sort of knew I was a bit of a drama queen. I always threw tantrums, so I knew I wasn’t a normal child.

What fiction could match – in drama or suspense – man’s first walk on the Moon?

I’m into parlor dramas. I’m into theatre. I’m trained for the stage. I trained to do Chekhov and Shakespeare, I was trained for the stage.

I really hope someday in Hollywood, some producer or director will hire me only to do drama.

A life filled with silly social drama and gossip indicates that a person is disconnected from purpose and lacking meaningful goals. People on a path of purpose don’t have time for drama.

Drama in our lives is the greatest indicator that we’re not focused on meaningful goals. On the path to purpose you don’t have time for drama.

Free yourself from the complexities and drama of your life. Simplify. Look within. Within ourselves we all have the gifts and talents we need to fulfill the purpose we’ve been blessed with.