I guess the things I have always loved are from people who were just being themselves. They were doing these things because they couldn't do it any other way. It was for them.

I just realized that I never look at a painting and ask, 'Is this painting fictional or non-fictional?' It’s just a painting.

Writing should be like skirts. Long enough to cover what it needs to cover and short enough to maintain interest.

Samuel Clemens isn't Mark Twain. Mark Twain is Mark Twain. He doesn't become the thing until he creates himself.

I have no interest in being a trained ballerina. People should dance how they want to dance. I want to be the funky chicken.

We like something because someone else liked it.

It's like that where these little anecdotes come through, and I guess that's what I like about books like that [He Stopped Loving Her Today]. Fiction now is so experiential.

The things that I have loved have always been those extremes where there has been some kind of apocalypse in the person's life, and they come out unscathed or scathed.

So much of our culture is bought and manufactured - not to say great art can't come out of that. Some art is really amazing that is manufactured and sold, like action movies and stuff.

I think maybe it's my personality. People don't like my face.

It's weird. People want you to know that they write. They want you to know they're a musician, rather than making music or making stories. It's the strangest thing.

Hello Dad! It is now three in the morning. Do you know where I am?

A friend is someone whose face you can see in the dark.

Do not cry, ” she said fiercely, but her own tears flowed. “Do not cry, Finnikin. For if we begin, our tears will never end.

To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more: this is a hard saying but an ancient, mighty, human, all-too-human principle [....] Without cruelty there is no festival.

The rabbi glanced over glumly from behind the jail bars. 'My faith in God is fine, ' he said. 'It's people I'm not so sure about.

You can sometimes learn more working with less talented people, because you learn to survive.

I have heard myself accused of being an opponent, an enemy of mathematics, which no one can value more highly than I, for it accomplishes the very thing whose achievement has been denied me.

I do the extra... When you do the extra you should never doubt yourself... every fight I have a smile on my face because I know I've done it all.

When it comes to gossip, I have to readily admit men are as guilty as women.

(Adron leveled a scowl that made him shrink back.) Jeeze, you ought to bottle that look. I know armies that would pay a fortune to have something that toxic in their arsenal. (Tiernan)