I was an English major in university and that got me into novels, but I read a lot of books as a kid.

If you make everything really on the nose so everyone knows exactly what you're talking about, it's often not as strong.

Sold my soul to the devil / for nice penmanship. / Now I write real pretty / but I'm starting to regret it.

I don't believe in the myth of the "self made man". Nobody gets through alone.

I used to be so young, how did I get so old?

You can't just look at the side of something that you want to see. You have to look at the whole round object and understand that there are parts of it that you don't like.

I think that's why art prevails: because it helps people in a fairly intangible, magical way feel more connected to each other.

I think the future and the past are equally hypothetical.

Sometimes I just don't have time to wait for the muse to come, so I've developed things to force the muse to come back.

I'm influenced in a million different ways by a million songs that I've heard and digested.

The idea that things intrinsically were just better is so stupid to me because they never were. It's all relative.

An effective life is anchored on the ability to look into your life and see results in line with your creation

Be yourself! Don’t try to fabricate your personality in the guise of impressing others.

I'm somebody who likes codes and ciphers and chases and artwork and architecture, and all the things you find in a Robert Langdon thriller.

Be confident and not cocky.

In the office, the mail that came in was always 10 to 1 for me.

Consciousness allows you the capacity to plan.

A historian may be an artist too, and a novelist is a historian, the preserver, the keeper, the expounder, of human experience.

We have roots that grow towards each other underground. And when all the pretty blossom has fallen from our branches we find that we are one tree and not two.

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.

A diamond, though set in horns, is still a diamond, and sparkles in purest gold.