“If you can show that something is to a person's advantage, they have an attractive reason for doing that thing.”

“There's something in the human personality which resents things that are clear, and conversely, something which is attracted to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories.”

“Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves.”

“Unless the person is aiming upward, there is nothing you can do about their situation. And this seems to be about that initial choice between good and evil. Once someone comes to therapy, they've already done something. They've already said: I have a problem, conceivably I can fix it, and I need to do something about it. And so half the work is already done before they show up, because they've already said that 'things aren't as good as they could be, and I want to do something about it.' The question is, can you do anything about that person who is not at that state? You can't. All you can do is serve by example. But until the person has decided, on their own, that they're wrong (that's why they're suffering – there's something wrong about what they are doing) and that they want to fix it… I think that hammering against their situation often makes it worse. That's part of free will. I do not think that people can learn unless they admit that they're wrong.”

“I thought I would like to show that these kids can do something which is in fact very skillful - not the old tale about them being cobblers and joiners, but something that means they have to get books out of the library. And it’s a technical skill; they’ve actually got to read about it before they can do something like training a hawk. My brother trained a kestrel in these fields at the back, and I wanted to show that kids can do this kind of thing. They can do all kinds of things if only they’re given opportunities.”

“Men become much more attractive when they start looking older. But it doesn't do much for women, though we do have an advantage: make-up.”

“There are three categories of individuals: the false, the envious and the bad. The false, do not have the courage to show themselves and be themselves. The envious, they do not take advantage to learn something new and be able to do better. The villains, they willfully and severely harm the health of others.”

“How many advantages can one person have? I'm a white man!”

“If I wanted to doubt then I could doubt endlessly. But at some point a person has to stop questioning and act, and at that point you have to trust something to be true. You have to act as if something is true, and so you choose the thing you have the most reason to believe in, you have to live in the world that you have the most hope in.”

“The character doesn’t have to be exactly like them, but as an author you have to give something to the reader that shows the vulnerability and where the character’s coming from…You can have characters do awful things, but you make them relatable or have some kind of backstory that makes their actions, even if it’s not excusable, understandable…”