“Just didn’t know whether I would finish the book much less for it to come close to what I intended. I think that for any novel you never know exactly how the book is going to turn out…”

I reached for some principle that had been subconscious in me and lifted it into consciousness.

Writers are a loosely knit community – community is an overstated word. Writers don’t see each other very much.

I think Joe Leiberman has been one of the leaders of the country… people have such a broad respect for him as a moral force.

Music is, of course, a universal emotional experience, cutting across cultures and languages. I studied piano for ten years as a child and consider that experience one of the most valuable in my life.

Time is the clarity for seeing right and wrong.

All beliefs not in such contradiction may be considered as faith. Whether faith in a particular belief is beneficial or not is another matter.

At every point of decision, the world splits into three worlds, each with the same people, but different fates for those people. In time, there are an infinity of worlds.

We try to connect. We try to find truth. We dream and we hope. And underneath all of these strivings, we are haunted by the suspicion that what we see and understand of the world is only a tiny piece of the whole.

The world is moving faster and faster, but where are we going?

The future is pattern, organization, union, intensification; the past, randomness, confusion, disintegration, dissipation.

Every essay – the subject matter of every essay – is ultimately about the essayist; him or herself. That ultimately, every essayist is writing about his or her view of the world.

Sons never escape from the shadows of their fathers. Nor do daughters of their mothers. No one ever comes into his own…Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free.

Franz Kafka is an idea person. His books begin and end in ideas. Ideas have always been important to me in my writing.

I have also been fascinated for a long time with the intersection of science and religion.

I think people all over the institution recognize that different ways of understanding are valuable. Artists may think in a different way than biologists or chemists, but you can learn something from that.

It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning.

This [discovery of a cell-free yeast extract] will make him famous

I actually had less time and the exact same budget on Hairspray, which was few years ago and this is a much bigger movie [then Rock of Ages]. That’s the way studios do it now.

We aren’t exactly emptying the oceans; it’s more like clear-cutting a forest with thousands of species to create massive fields with one type of soybean.

There are moments as a teacher when I’m conscious that I’m trotting out the same exact phrase my professor used with me years ago.

Too exact, and studious of similitude rather than of beauty.

Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.

Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.

Myths are seldom simple, and never irresponsible.