Sometimes when we meet other people—and even after we've gotten to know them—all we see is the tip of the iceberg when we look at their lives. We don't understand the things that are driving them, the unresolved issues from their pasts, and the depth of pain they're in now.

No other human can climb down our throats like a spelunker and hack through our trachea and try on our hearts and see how they feel. One mortal cannot fully comprehend how another operates from within.

I've read a dozen different versions of Stanislavski's famous Three Questions, i.e. the queries an actor must ask him- or herself before playing any scene. Here's my version: Who am I? Why am I here? What do I want? The second two are pretty easy. It's the first that's the killer.

The artist and the fundamentalist both confront the same issue, the mystery of their existence as individuals. Each asks the same questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of my life?

I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.

Almost nothing is as complex as the human personality, and no simple formula will ever cover every situation or every relationship.

Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I've never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl.

Most country songs, certainly all the stuff I've written, are stories driven by characters.

I tell you I can't read a book, but I can read de people.

Like" and "like" and "like"--but what is the thing that lies beneath the semblance of the thing?

The variety of opinions leads to questions. Questions lead to truth.

I didn't have any brothers or sisters, so I did a lot of stuff where I entertained myself playing games, reading a lot, a lot of fantasy novel stuff.