Despair, in short, seeks its own environment as surely as water finds its own level.

The point is not to pay back kindness but to pass it on.

Each of us will have to make the choices that allow us to be the largest versions of ourselves.

It's like my whole world is coming undone, but when I write, my pencil is a needle and thread, and I'm stitching the scraps back together.

A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart.

I write to find out what I am thinking. I write to find out who I am. I write to understand things.

A book does not discriminate against any reader. All are welcome at the table of literature.

Don't plan it all. Let life surprise you a little.

Everyone needs a strong sense of self. It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life.

I admit that for me love goes deeper than the struggle, or maybe what I mean is, love is the deeper struggle.

Every writer can tell you that a book is only truly alive when it finds passionate readers who bring it alive in their imaginations.

To my mind the single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom.

He who submits to discipline is a DISCIPLE.

If you don't feel something strongly you're not going to achieve.

Platitudes are safe, because they're easy to wink at, but truth is something else again.

I have a rich, full, textured life.

I'm polite. I guess that's the dichotomy within me. I don't like to piss people off just for the sake of pissing them off. I pick my battles.

I'd do a lot of things to protect you.

Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular-letter to the friends of him who writes it.

I have dedicated a significant portion of my time and artistry to making art that addresses various forms of oppression, including white supremacy, misogyny, and biphobia.

Maybe it's the music that enables them to function like that, to always take everything as it comes and never complain about the misery, hardship or injustice.