Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

If my films don’t show a profit, I know I’m doing something right.

I’ve had no contact with my daughter for years. That’s her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don’t want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.

There’s something about death that is comforting. The thought that you could die tomorrow frees you to appreciate your life now.

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

I wanted to get a job being creative, and I did.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.

I am two with nature.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want.

Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.

We welcome the scrutiny of the world – because what you see in America is a country that has steadily worked to address our problems and make our union more perfect.

You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do – and they don’t. They have prejudices. They may like Henry James, but what if you don’t want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who’s the bore of all time.

The biggest issue is muscle pliability. That’s what I think the biggest secret to me is. What is muscle pliability? Muscle pliability is keeping your muscles long and soft.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

When I was into my 30s, I became increasingly depressed by rejection letters. I had had the feeling that by the time I was 30, I would be established. But I was not at all. By the time of ‚Lives of Girls and Women,‘ I was into my 40s and I had become more thin-skinned.

I like the app where you can make your own memes. I make memes all the time and send them to my friends.

There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.

You don’t have to be scared of me, because I am loyal. Why are people so scared of creative ideas and so scared of truth? All I want to do is do good.

Acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality it brings something entirely new into this world. That peace, a subtle energy vibration, is consciousness.

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

Total relaxation is the secret to enjoying sitting meditation. I sit with my spine upright, but not rigid; and I relax all the muscles in my body.

I write for the same reason I breathe – because if I didn’t, I would die.

Always fall in with what you’re asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever’s going. Not against: with.

Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.

Everyone goes through adversity in life, but what matters is how you learn from it.

I seem to turn out stories that violate the discipline of the short story form and don’t obey the rules of progression for novels. I don’t think about a particular form: I think more about fiction, let’s say a chunk of fiction.

Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

I learn poetry, learn text, and that really keeps you alive.

Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It’s a physical experience.

Then suddenly something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and realised that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are. My immediate reaction was to back off, slow down.

It is a joy to be an artist, but it doesn’t mean very much unless that work is somehow useful in some way and contributes to others.

PowerPoint may not be of any use for you in a presentation, but it may liberate you in another way, an artistic way. Who knows.

Storms make trees take deeper roots.

I am a simple Buddhist monk – no more, no less.

We allow no geniuses around our Studio.

The man who has no imagination has no wings.

Literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. For, to the poet, all times and places are one; the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is inept, no past or present preferable.

Number of people have said to me, after hearing your thinking, their mind becomes much more happier.

A mind at peace, a mind centered and not focused on harming others, is stronger than any physical force in the universe.

When you look at the sun during your walking meditation, the mindfulness of the body helps you to see that the sun is in you; without the sun there is no life at all and suddenly you get in touch with the sun in a different way.

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.

Many of us have been running all our lives. Practice stopping.

One of the things you do when you make a piece of art is you try to make the world you’d rather be in.

Necessity… the mother of invention.

Like any creative human being, I would like a bit more control so that it would be a little easier for me when the director says, ‚One tear, right now,‘ that one tear would pop out.

When I’m dancing, I’m not thinking about anything. I am here. I am totally there. You know? And the feeling is a sensation of being away from myself. My soul dances with the angels, and my body dances with my wife.

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.

Jiu Jitsu is a great workout both mentally and physically. You want to be strong for it and flexible for it.

To realize that you are not your thoughts is when you begin to awaken spiritually.

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense.

Since everything is in our heads, we had better not lose them.

Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.

This above all, to refuse to be a victim.