...What happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of events affect us.

By nature, a storyteller is a plagiarist. Everything one comes across—each incident, book, novel, life episode, story, person, news clip—is a coffee bean that will be crushed, ground up, mixed with a touch of cardamom, sometimes a tiny pinch of salt, boiled thrice with sugar, and served as a piping-hot tale.

When I was younger, I used to find stories about divas charming. Not much anymore.

We seem, particularly over here in the West and in America in particular, to have forgotten that we are, in large measures, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves.

A story has its purpose and its path. It must be told correctly for it to be understood.

I am more one for the story, I think, than the action.