“What I am very disturbed about is this trend of everything happening faster and faster and faster and there being more and more general noise in the world, and less and less time for quiet reflection on who we are, and where we’re going.”

For my students who are trying to learn the craft of writing in a writing class – contemporary literature is what’s most useful.

If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly.

I have no opposition at all to technology. I think technology is a wonderful thing that has to be used thoughtfully, and we can’t just assume that every bit of new technology improvesthe quality of life; it’s really in how the technology is used.

The belief or disbelief in such a Being is therefore a matter of faith.

It’s exciting having a student who is not used to expressing their emotional side and bringing that out in them and see that developing and helping to nurture that.

I should have written books instead of reading them.

Continents of memory had been lost.

Faith is the ability to honor stillness at some moments, and at others to ride the passion and exuberance.

After a while the car becomes just another thing that he owns. Moreover, when his neighbor next door buys two cars, in an instant our man feels wretchedly poor and deprived.

In fiction writing ideas have to be handled extremely carefully.

I would think that you are more fluent with the rational. It has its appeal. But the irrational permits a greater exercise of … shall we say, power.

Nature is purposeless. Nature simply is. We may find nature beautiful or terrible, but those feelings are human constructions. Such utter and complete mindlessness is hard for us to accept.

But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought? And if the shift is everywhere, how would we know?

Making that book into a film is going to be quite a challenge.

Who would fare better in this world of fitful time? Those who have seen the future and live only one life? Or those who have not seen the future and wait to live life? Or those who deny the future and live two lives?

For me, spirituality includes the belief in things larger than ourselves, an appreciation of nature and beauty, a sensitivity to the world, a feeling of shared connection with other living things, a desire to help people less fortunate than ourselves.

We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?

With everything I do, I just try to be myself.

Religion has everything on its side: revelation, prophecies, government protection, the highest dignity and eminence. . . and more than this, the invaluable prerogative of being allowed to imprint its doctrines on the mind at a tender age of childhood, whereby they become almost innate ideas.

ISIS and Iran have declared war on America, and we need a commander in chief who will do everything necessary to keep our children safe.

To me, everything is wonderful. Life is wonderful.

You can’t speak openly about everything.

Everybody in the NBA is good. And then you have the really good ones and the great ones.

When I’m playing the 1-guard, I’m kind of seeing everything that’s going on.