A lot of my work comes from a place of despair or fear. I often write in order to gain some sort of control over aspects of my life or the world that seem too dark to look at directly.

As a person, I do ascribe to a lot of magical thinking myself.

In the end, fiction is the craft of telling truth through lies.

While writing, writers are living inside a character or characters, and when the book ekes into the world, writers are living inside the reader. That's more than connecting.

Amor animi arbitrio sumitu, non ponitur; we choose to love; we do not choose to cease loving.

Who, in the midst of passion, is vigilant against illness? Who listens to the reports of recently decimated populations in Spain, India, Bora Bora, when new lips, tongues and poems fill the world?

If there's a black cat that crosses the street in my path, I will turn around and walk 20 minutes out of my way to not cross it.

Depressing thought: my friends were the girls I ate lunch with, all buddies from kindergarten who knew one another so well we weren't sure if we even liked one another anymore.

Sometimes you have to let time carry you past your troubles.

I'm a private person, a shy person. Sometimes, reading for eleven hours straight feels to me like the perfect way to spend a day.

I love Twitter. It's like having a closet full of clever friends that you can visit twice a day, then shove back into the darkness when you're tired of them.

You know how cats do. They hide to die. Dogs come home.

Every time government attempts to handle our affairs, it costs more and the results are worse than if we had handled them ourselves.

Great teams have players who understand their responsibilities.

This is why I loved technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy.

Becoming obsessed with what people think is the quickest way to forget about what God thinks.

It's weird when people start sentences with 'frankly' - as if their other sentences don't count.

I don't have a fear of heights. I do, however, have a fear of falling from heights.

Dancers today can do anything; the technique is phenomenal. The passion and the meaning to their movement can be another thing.

It is usually expensive and lonely to be principled.

The most wonderful inspirational chemistry we can use on another is the gift of our love and acceptance. Devoted and unquestioned love has a magic creative power.