“Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want.”

Why didn’t I learn to treat everything like it was the last time. My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.

I don’t think that there are any limits to how excellent we could make life seem.

Feeding my children is not like feeding myself: it matters more.

I can forgive you for leaving, but not for coming back.

He was someone whom everyone admired and liked but whom nobody knew. He was like a book that you could feel good holding, that you could talk about without ever having read, that you could recommend.

What does it remember like?

I took the world into me, rearranged it, and sent it back out as a question: “Do you like me?

Fiction works when it makes a reader feel something strongly.

We shared the smile of recognizing ourselves in each other, how many imposters do I have? Do we all make the same mistakes, or has one of us gotten it right, or even just a bit less wrong, am I the imposter?

My wife and I have chosen to bring up our children as vegetarians. In another time or place, we might have made a different decision. But the realities of our present moment compelled us to make that choice.

With writing, we have second chances.

Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean].

Why are you leaving me? He wrote, I do not know how to live. I do not know either but I am trying. I do not know how to try. There were some things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So i buried them and let them hurt me

Please be truthful, but also please be benevolent, please.

Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled.

I thought for a minute, and then I got heavy, heavy boots.

I’m not a natural story-teller. Put a keyboard in front of me and I’m fine, but stand me up in front of an audience and I’m actually quite shy and reserved.

I went to the Glasgow Youth Theatre and they just let me in. But I was so shy that I was there for about six weeks without actually introducing myself.

I was quite a shy child – not chronically, but I tended to blend into the background.

You know I was a shy guy and people didn’t know that and still don’t know it today. I’m sure basketball brought my shyness out because of the fact that you have to do interviews, and that people are always talking to you in terms of the fans and everything.

Cameras are a lifesaver for very shy people who have nowhere else to hide. Behind a lens they can disguise the fact that they have nothing to say to strangers.

I’m like a chameleon. I adapt to my situation. It’s very slowed down here. I like it that way. I’m a guy that’s very reserved, quiet and shy myself.

Honestly, I am a shy person.

Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it… Success is shy – it won’t come out while you’re watching.