“It’s easier to be a character in a story than the star of your own tragedy.”

“Character is much easier kept than recovered.”

“My mother wanted us to understand that the tragedies of your life one day have to potential to be the comic stories the next.”

“I succeeded in making you care. If you feel nothing, I failed you as a storyteller. I love happy endings, but some readers need the darker stories, too. The stories that don’t make them feel disturbed by their own reality because it doesn’t reflect what they’re used to seeing in fiction. There’s some comfort in harsher stories, and witnessing how one character rebuilds after tragedy can provide hope for the reader.”

“X-Men Legends 2, it would be so much easier to enjoy you if your characters would ever shut up.”

“That is why most great love stories are tragedies.”

“You are the Hero of your own Story.”

“All great characters in stories are the ones who give their lives to something bigger than themselves. And in all of the stories I don't find anyone more noble than Jesus.”

“Tell the story as if it were only of interest to the small circle of your characters, of which you may be one. There is no other way to put life into the story.”

“The thing is to be happy,' he said. 'No matter what. Just try that. You can. It gets to be easier and easier. It's nothing to do with circumstances. You wouldn't believe how good it is. Accept everything and then tragedy disappears. Or tragedy lightens, anyway, and you're just there, going along easy in the world.”