I think the one thing that's changed over time is that I've come to realise, as a fiction writer, the fact that I don't think it will work out, doesn't mean that it actually won't.

I was a stepchild in two different families. The hardest thing about being a stepchild is you know that in some way everything would be easier if you didnt exist.

If I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.

Read at the level at which you want to write. Reading is the nourishment that feeds the kind of writing you want to do.

Goon Squad' took about three years to write and that's the short end. My second novel, 'Look at Me,' took six years.

I don’t want to fade away, I want to flame away - I want my death to be an attraction, a spectacle, a mystery. A work of art.

Because you can't write habitually and well all the time, you have to be willing to write badly. That's how you get the regularity that enables you to be present for the good stuff.

Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work.

I'm always happy," Sasha said. "Sometimes I just forget.

The answers were maddeningly absent—it was like trying to remember a song that you knew made you feel a certain way, without a title, artist, or even a few bars to bring it back.

Vinegar: that's what fear smells like.

How am I, a writer, supposed to feel about having lost you to a reader?

Wherever there is a crowd there is untruth.

Your favorite virtue? An appreciation for irony.

One should refrain from contempt for the baser specimens of humanity, for whom liberation amounts to shaving the heads of women who have slept with Germans.

This is what the good guys do. They keep trying. They don't give up

There are no mistakes, no coincidences; all events are blessings given to us to learn from.

It's ok to be sassy, but I'll never be trashy, it's ok to be nasty, but you got to keep it classy now

I was unfashionable before anyone knew who I was.

Genuine spiritual movement should forgive and encourage.

The public interest may be presumed to be what men would choose if they saw clearly, thought rationally, acted disinterestedly and benevolently.