I look upon another's insistence on the merits of his or her life - duties, intellect, accomplishment - and see that most of it is nonsense.

Me, my literary reputation is mostly abroad, but I am anchored here in New York. I can't think of any other place I'd rather die than here.

It is death that goes down to the center of the earth, the great burial church the earth is, and then to the curved ends of the universe, as light is said to do.

Public radio is alive and kicking, it always has been.

Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.

People talk about grief as if it's kind of an unremittingly awful thing, and it is. It is painful, but it's a very, very interesting sort of thing to go through, and it really helps you out. At the end of the day, it gets you through because you have to reform your relationship, and you have to figure out a way of getting to the future.

There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.

I've certainly had a bad attitude to my job on many occasions. Not since 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'. I've been rather a good boy and really given it everything when I've accepted a part since then, because I've been given much better parts in films.