But the day I can't shrug off a twinge of self-pity, is the day I'm washed up for keeps.

I try not to become too regular an addict of any one subculture.

I never take any notes or draw charts or make elaborate diagrams, but I hold an image of the shape of a book in my head and work from that mental hologram.

I've never related to the work geek at all-it sounds much more horrible than nerd. Like a freak biting a chicken's head off in a sideshow.

I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me.

Someday I would change my name to Shut Up and save everybody a lot of time.

I work on a laptop specifically so I can work in cafes and pretend I'm part of the human world.

What age is a black boy when he learns he's scary?

It was only as I wrote about fear that I began to find paths of access to feelings that were intolerable to me then.

I want what we all want," said Carl. "To move certain parts of the interior of myself into the exterior world, to see if they can be embraced.

I can't bear the silent ringing in my skull.

The Friendship is a suicide, the question is "Are you ready to suicide?".

Nothing but Christian faith gives to the furthest future the solidity and definiteness which it must have if it is to be a breakwater for us against the fluctuating sea of present cares and thoughts.

The mighty hopes that make us men.

My experience on this planet is that if you treat people with respect, they tend to treat you with respect.

If I've learned anything in this business, it's that you have to be fearless.

She pulled off Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse and settled down in a comfortable leather chair by the fire to read.

The central idea in The Black Swan is that: rare events cannot be estimated from empirical observation since they are rare.

Iowans know themselves and what they are doing. They are doing well.

Two, let's all stop smoking blunts; let's smoke out of papers. Ladies, you all should just love me. Let's all have a beautiful year, let's get this money.

I sold my soul to the devil. Lucifer will have my soul.