I love telling people what to read. It's my favorite thing in the world, to buy books and force books on people, take bad books away from people, give them better books.

Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.

Part of it is living in Tennessee. I'm so out of the loop. And as a person, I'm out of the loop. I'm oblivious by nature.

Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.

No matter how much we love a book, the experience of reading it isn't complete until we can give it to someone who will love it as much as we do

Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.

You are always someones favorite unfolding story

Just because things hadn't gone the way I had planned didn't necessarily mean they had gone wrong.

I can write for any magazine now, in any voice. I can do it in two hours, I could do it in my sleep, it's like writing a grocery list.

There can be something cruel about people who have had good fortune. They equate it with personal goodness.

Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined.

It’s awfully difficult to be ‘right’ when you don’t have all the information.

I feel successful when the writing goes well. This lasts five minutes. Once when I was on the bestseller list I also felt successful. That lasted three minutes.

There are times we spent money when we shouldn't, the choices we make define the results we get

Sometimes it pays to be a little wild.

Get very clear about the kind of world we would like and then start living that way.

I don't want to mix the identities. Noah Drake isn't Rick Springfield.

The real reward for doing your best work is not the money you make but the leader you become.

If Milo [Yiannopoulos] were a liberal, he could say whatever and then some, and he wouldn't be addressing Conservative Political Action Conference, he would be emceeing the Oscars.

Every painting I do is related to the last one: it may be a continuation of a previous painting or it may be a reaction against it.

What I learned: Shun nonbelievers. Ignore critics. Do your best for people who want to dance with you.