I don't think the world works on merit.

I think you're all mad. But that's part and parcel of being an artistic genius, isn't it?

If you don't believe that the world has a heart, then you won't hear it beating, you won't think it's alive and you won't consider what you're doing to it.

Fairy tales and mythology have always been an exaggerated distillation of the real world. Think of them as blueprints for how to deal with a multitude of situations that can arise in a person's life. The beauty of them is that their analogies resonate so deeply and they also entertain while they teach.

The puppet thinks: It's not so much what they make me do as their hands inside me.

I don't think the world is the way we like to think it is. I don't think it's one solid world, but many, thousands upon thousands of them--as many as there are people--because each person perceives the world in his or her own way; each lives in his or her own world. Sometimes they connect, for a moment, or more rarely, for a lifetime, but mostly we are alone, each living in our own world, suffering our small deaths.

The real problem is, people think life is a ladder, and it's really a wheel.

I'm not as trusting as people think I am. Sure, I see the best in people, but that doesn't mean it's really there.