“I learned that writing is the consolation prize you are given when you don’t get the thing you want the most.”

Where the strangers we meet, take us down one way streets, and forgetting is something we’re taught.

You are a writer bleeding words onto a page. And the ones who hate you will trample on that page. And the ones who love you will cut you, to keep you bleeding.

I think there is a sense of ownership in knowing, isn’t there? You let people in, and they claim parts of you-they fly their flag over uncharted territory and from then onward-you cease to belong wholly to yourself.

There is a savagery to what you feel. It eats you up inside. But you will get through it; you don’t need his mouth to placate you. You don’t need his hands to untangle the butterfly knot in your heart. Your love is a fire that will burn itself out. Let it ravage you.

You must emerge from adversity, scathed but victorious to tell your story and, in turn, light the way for others.

When in truth, it is the transparency that kills you. The pain of seeing through to something you can never quite touch.

When love finds you, it doesn’t come as crashing waves or thunderbolts. It appears as a song on the radio or a particular blue in the sky. It dawns on you slowly, like a warm winter sunrise-where the promise of summer shines out from within.

We will remain unwritten through history, no X will mark us on the map; but in books of prose and poetry, you loved me once, in a paragraph.

The less you speak, the more weight your words will carry when you do.

Yes, I think it is entirely possible to fall in love with someone you’ve never met. Physicality is an expression of intimacy- not an indication of it.

To never do the things I’ve done that once had led to my undoing.

You can create something that is pure genius, but you have to get your timing right.

What I feel for you is at once the expression of language and the absence of it.

And I told him, if I am so hard to love, then let me run wild.

But you’re not the kind of girl who builds her house from sticks; you are a fortress, stubborn and strong. Do not give away the keys to the kingdom to anyone less than a king.

How do I thank my mother for giving me the life she desperately wanted to give herself.

No matter how accomplished or how many awards you get, you’re always still thinking there’s somebody out there who’s better than you.

It’s interesting, winning an Academy Award as a young man… life-changing, but I’m just me within that.

People tend to look at dating sort of like a safari – like they’re trying to land the trophy.

As a singer, I haven’t felt any lesser by not getting an award. Winning or not winning an award doesn’t affect me. I just like to do my work in the best possible manner. I am happy getting good songs. I am happy not getting awards.

I produced a play in New York that got nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best American Play.

Awards are not something that I measure my work by. I’ve been so fortunate and I’ve gotten to do such terrific things that it seems petty to look back and say, ‘Oh, I should have gotten that prize.’ I’ve been so blessed, it’s hard to look back and think anything but that, so I have no disappointments.

I was very surprised when I heard that I had been chosen to receive the James Cardinal Gibbons Award.

Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the Academy Award. I’m going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig.