“Because I write fiction that is based in the real world, it’s going to lead people into some of the modern dilemmas and concerns and even catastrophes that they will think about in a new way.”

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

What you lose in blindness is the space around you, the place where you are, and without that you might not exist. You could be nowhere at all.

Mr. Shepherd, ye cannot stop a bad thought from coming into your head. But ye need not pull up a chair and bide it sit down.” – Mrs. Brown

How strange to read of a place in a book, and then stand on it, listen to the birds sing, and spit on the cobbles if you want.

I made it to the childbearing phase without TV dependence, then looked around and thought, Well gee, why start now? Why get a pet python on the day you decide to raise fuzzy little gerbils?

Literature sucks you into another psyche. So the creation of empathy necessarily influences how you’ll behave to other people.

Literature is one of the few kinds of writing in the world that does not tell you what to buy, want, see, be, or believe. It’s more like conversation, raising new questions and inspiring you to answer them for yourself.

The happiest people are the ones with the most community.

She kept swimming out into life because she hadn’t yet found a rock to stand on.

Prayer had always struck me as more or less a glorified attempt at a business transaction.

If you want sweet dreams, you’ve got to live a sweet life.

That was when we smelled the rain. It was so strong it seemed like more than just a smell. When we stretched out our hands we could practically feel it rising up from the ground. I don’t know how a person could ever describe that scent.

You never knew which split second might be the zigzag bolt dividing all that went before from the everything that comes next.

I could never work out whether we were to view religion as a life-insurance policy or a life sentence.

We’re surrounded by mandates, and I believe that literature should be mandate-free. I feel very strongly about that.

Does a man become a revolutionary out of the belief he’s entitled to joy rather than submission?

Some people will never be able to get their real self, but that’s fine, because their fake self is also part of them.

The real number of the US’ obligations, unfunded obligations that we’re passing on to our future generates is more like $70 trillion to $75 trillion.

If you judge everything by how photographically real it looks, then you’re missing out on a lot of what art is about and what communication is. There are ambiguities in life, and that should be reflected in art, cinema, and storytelling, I think.

The real lesson of 9/11 that I think we have still to learn is that this is a world of interdependence, in which all of the challenges of environment and climate change, of jobs, of disease, of war and terrorism, are cross-border problems that cannot be met one nation at a time.

Art is ruled uniquely by the imagination. Images are it’s only wealth. It does not classify objects, it does not pronounce them real or imaginary, does not qualify them does not define them; it feels and presents them.

Few real people appear in my two novels, actually. “Ari” appears on the edge of this book a couple of times – but on the edge, she’s never in it, even if she’s a determining force from the outside. Everybody in the first book was basically made up, if never from scratch.

The Photo Album is the weakest record. For the first time in our careers, we found ourselves with an economic incentive to be on the road and to be making albums.

And I’ve always said, ‘If two people think the same thing about everything, one of them isn’t necessary.’ We need to be able to understand that if we’re going to make real progress.