“I'm a good person. In most ways. But I'm beginning to think that being a good person in most ways doesn't count for anything very much, if you're a bad person in one way.”

“Essentially, I'm a very real person; good and bad. And the public image is one of being very good, I suppose. But one of the reasons I'm attracted to people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Christ, to pacifism, is because naturally, I'm the guy that would not turn the other cheek - but, when people see you're attracted to that, they think you are that.”

“Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for.”

“Sometimes being a good mother gets in the way of being a good person.”

“You know, I came to realize that the person that once treated me worse than anybody else, is the person that treats me the best. That the person that I feared more than anyone else has wound up being the person that I trust more than anyone else. That the person I once hated the most has wound up being the person that I've kind of fallen in love with. There's no way in this world i'm going to be disappointed in the person that i'm pretty much in awe of.”

“I'm a good person but a shitty writer. You're a shitty person but a good writer. We'd make a good team.”