Perhaps fiction has, for me, served a similar purpose--what is a narrative arc if not the imposition of order on disparate events?--and perhaps it is my avid reading that has been my faith all along.

Perhaps this is how you know you're doing the thing you're intended to: No matter how slow or how slight your progress, you never feel that it's a waste of time.

Probably I, like a lot of people, became a writer in imitation of or in homage to the books I enjoyed. When you're so captivated by something, you think, could I do that? Hmm, let me try

We all make mistakes, don't we? But if you can't forgive yourself, you'll always be an exile in your own life.

People who think my books are autobiographical, which they're not, credit me with having a much better memory than I do. I do, however, have a powerful imagination

I don't really have special rituals, but I don't try to write fiction unless I have a minimum of a few hours. For me, it takes a while to settle into a mode where I'm truly concentrating

We have to make mistakes, its how we learn compassion for others

I always worried someone would notice me, and then when no one did, I felt lonely.

Obviously the bar is much higher now for a behavior to be scandalous. Social media has really changed the way people live. It's not a new impulse; it's just being enacted in a new way.

I don't think it's shameful to admit that some days your time can be better spent reading than writing.

I have this theory that the likeability question comes up so much more with female characters created by female authors than it does with male characters and male authors

You look back on some little decision you made and realize all the things that happened because of it, and you think to yourself "if only I'd known, " but, of course, you couldn't have known.

The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79.

Harry Potter mustn't be angry... Dobby hoped... if Harry Potter thought his friends had forgotten him... Harry Potter might not want to go back to school, sir...

Don't ever forget the moment you began to doubt, transitioning from fitting in to standing out.

Think what cowards men would be if they had to bear children. Women are altogether a superior species.

Life is a daily cleansing. Negativity must be washed away, if you wish to attract positive experiences to your life.

"thanks" in MaoriGrateful living: an alchemic operation of converting "disgraceful" things into grateful events.

Fame, that public destruction of one in process of becoming, into whose building-ground the mob breaks, displacing his stones.

if love doesnt come first and linger after, if love cant wait and endure disappointment and seperation, then its not love.

After all, I think Forrest was the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side.