If I'm not writing, I'm not fully living. It has become the essential element that defines who I am.

These moments were wondrous and divine, instances when the gossamer curtain between heaven and earth ripped and all of humanity witnessed the marvel of the ethereal beings.

That's l'amour: we willingly walk into the future blindfolded.

One is but a shade of the other.

Don't stay in a bad situation - whether it is a relationship or a job - out of fear of failure. It's not a failure to walk away and choose to be happy. It takes a lot of courage.

I was fifteen then, too young to fall in-love. Or maybe it is only then, with dew of childhood still in my eyes, that I was capable of such love. I will never know, of course.

But, most important, we must not become as base and treacherous as our enemies.

There are always those who would put on armour and go into battle. but the real genius is in finding a way to get what you desire without dying for it.

When the time comes, we can only expect that we have learned enough to succeed.

I started listening to the Cure around the time I discovered Joy Division and, like Joy Division, they have shaped my taste in all sorts of dark and dreary ways.

I taught myself to write in order to understand who I was and so yes, writing was an act of self-actualization in the beginning.

To the short-sighted, through the fog, God must be a monster.

If it feels as though life is screwing with you - it isn't. The world isn't 'against you'.It's simply showing you what you believe and giving you a chance to observe it and change it.

Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.

... there are many to whom money has no personal appeal, but who can be tempted by the power it confers.

Act averse to nasty language and partial to fruity tea.

Somehow it has been forgotten that the Republican party was founded in 1854 as an abolitionist movement, with one simple creed: that slavery is a violation of the rights of man.

Creativity, my students learn, is as natural a function of the mind as breathing or digestion are natural functions of the body.

Sometimes I just want to write a really intense love scene. But I can't do that in my books for teens, or parents will complain - believe me, I've tried.

I've been selfish over the years, and other people who have made it have too, but I can only speak for myself.

Don't be 'a writer'. Be writing.