People who are suffering have to visualize ways out of tragedy to actually get out of it.

People seem very comfortable having a kind of Cheesecake Factory-type of life.

Whenever I went to an historical moment that was sad or where something terrible happened, it was, for me, a learning moment, a teaching moment for those who survived.

I usually feel something before I know it.

If you're just mired in privilege, there's nothing to learn; learning appears to be over.

Bruce Lee, before he fought, he would try to visualize how the fight would go, because he was visualizing a victorious path out of the combat.

Because I write intuitively and image-by-image and moment-by-moment, my writing has to be powered by feelings and emotions.

I can't stay engaged for years with a book unless it has feelings. It can't be an idea for me - it has to be a felt thing.

Much of the visualizing is imaginative.

People were always hungry, bullied, afraid, paranoid - so I just thought I'd show that in the novel in a kind of suffocating way.

Magical realism as a declaration in the text is usually when someone can't speak and then they must be magically reinvigorated in some way.

The nail that sticks out farthest gets hammered the hardest.

This is my heart on CRACK." Robin when she sees Creek

Two wrongs don't make a right, but neither does one. Revenge may seem petty by day, but on some nights she becomes Justice.

we lived depravityand called it truth, silencingour dreaming, andour love, discardingthings holy.

oh my god, she couldn't help thinking. I have hairy legs and I'm going to die alone.

I try not to read blogs. The comments are extremely harsh.

A mother would never by choice sleep in a wet bed but she would gladly do so in order to spare the dry bed for her child.

D'Angelo could sing the phonebook and it would sound good.

Small kindnesses often, unintentionally, produce the biggest payoffs.

One must understand the importance of an endless drive to get information and seek value.