I've always wrestled with the difference between plot and structure, and after re-reading a lot of writing books I realized I wasn't alone.

I always try to be alert to the potential for repetition, for a decaying orbit with regard to my use of technique, etc.

Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough.

When you think about the complexity of our natural world - plants using quantum mechanics for photosynthesis, for example - a smartphone begins to look like a pretty dumb object.

The map had been the first form of misdirection, for what is a map but a way of emphasizing some things and making other things invisible?

Nothing that lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth.

There's also a lot of gritty Americana type of bands. I actually have a lot of Britpop on my iPod, too.

I also am not particularly risk-averse - I don't mind jumping off a cliff if I trust the people who've told me they'll catch me at the bottom.

Imbuing fiction with a life that extends beyond the last word is in some ways the goal: the ending that goes beyond the ending in the reader's mind, so invested are they in the story.

So many differing opinions and philosophies... are rarely housed under the roof of a single magazine.

Literary influences are harder for me to point to, because mostly it's a mulch of all of my past reading.

Sometimes the hardest part isn't letting go but rather learning to start over.

Today if anything is trying to hold you back, give no attention to it. Get your hopes up, get your faith up, look up, and get ready to rise up.

I give him a smile I don't really own.

The photograph is a tool used to take you back to a certain point in one's life, to remember a face or a place you once stood. I feel there is always something quite melancholic about a photograph.

You can never say everything you want to say. I feel I had a fair opportunity to explain a lot of the questions.

I have to go back to my younger days, when I just adored Hollywood musicals.

Its a Bieber world live it or die.

Take the chance. Just believe and things will happen.

Well, surely, I am not in charge of South Africa.

Life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.