If you don't have people that the reader cares about and stories that are gripping, you've got nothing.

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.

I suggest that there is a splendid way out of the difficulty of marriage, and that is my way - stay out.

It is the passions that do and undo everything.

Demonic figures and occult themes have disappeared from modern magic.

You can’t just lump things into two categories. Things aren’t that simple.

Oh my God, I could watch Jennifer Coolidge for hours.

I want to make smart television.

You encourage people by seeing the good in them.

I watch a lot of TV, and I'd like to think what I watch is good TV.

There are much worse games to play.

We have very close humanitarian contacts [with China], wide-ranging youth exchanges, educational and regional contacts, and all of them continue to develop.