Philosophical Sayings

Difference is the source of learning. Maybe we should put it on a t-shirt — 'Difference is a Gift' so that we understand and don’t fear, so we are able to go up to the person most different from us and ask them the question we most fear asking.

We live in a world of either/or. We're trying to make a world of and.

I am in favor of changing society to fit people, not changing people to fit society.

The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together…. It's time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers.

Roots can exist without flowers, but no flower can exist without roots. Religion may be a flower, but people are its roots.

God may be in the details, but the goddess is in the questions.

Once we begin to ask (questions), there's no turning back.

Happy or unhappy, families are all mysterious. We have only to imagine how differently we would be described - and will be, after our deaths - by each of the family members who believe they know us.

Democracy begins with owning our bodies. By that measure, women have rarely lived in a democracy.

The Golden Rule was written by a smart guy for guys, but women need to reverse it: Treat ourselves as well as we treat others.

Everytime a woman looks in a mirror and criticizes her body, a girl is watching.

Just because we all have wombs doesn't mean we have to be mothers, just like we all have vocal cords doesn't mean we're all opera singers.

If you force Muslims to register, we will all register as Muslims.

We are linked. We are not ranked.

Most of it should be subconscious, if the work is coming from a special place. If I'm thinking and maneuvering that pen around, then that's me doing it. I really should let the characters take it. But the characters are different facets of me, or may…

I like it when somebody tells me a story, and I actually really feel that that's becoming like a lost art in American cinema.

You know, anything can be- you can make a joke out of anything. You name me any horrific thing, and I can make a joke out of it, all right, because you know, and a joke is a joke.

Violence was like another character in the room. It hung over the proceedings. You kept waiting for every conversation to break out into it. So even if it was funny, the audience might have laughed, but when they get out of the theater, they don't re…

A writer, a writer- you know, you should have this little voice inside of you saying, 'Tell the truth.'

I am a writer. That's what I do. It's a writer's job not just to write about himself but to look at the rest of humanity and explore it—other people's way of talking, the phrases they use. And my head is a sponge. I listen to what everyone says, I wa…