Somehow I wasn't adding up right anymore. My parts weren't summing into myself.

The beginning of the end can feel a lot like the middle when you are living in it.

When you're a kid, it's hard to tell the innocuous secrets from the ones that will kill you if you keep them.

Fiction helps me to reconnect with the true, deep weirdness inherent in everyday reality, in our dealings with one another, in just being alive.

It was sad and fierce all at once, alive with a lonely purity.

My older sister has entire kingdoms inside of her, and some of them are only accessible at certain seasons, in certain kinds of weather.

I spent most of my 20s with these alligator wrestlers in the swamps of South Florida.

It is a special kind of homelessness to be evicted from your dreams.

Self-disciplin e is necessary, but so is playfulness, flexibility, joy. When you stop demanding perfection of yourself, your writing desk will become a spacious place.

There are certain prehistoric things that swim beyond extinction.

You small mortals don't realize the power of your stories.

Can I try something?" I said. "If you dont' like it, I'll stop.

Success is often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable.

Try to do for the next generation of church leaders what the previous generation of church leaders has not done for you.

I don't talk to everybody, so they don't really know the real me. I don't think anybody will.

There are some writers who are done when they finish a draft because they've thought it through beforehand. Whereas I'll finish a first draft and I'm nowhere near done.

I'm about to play an emaciated pregnant vampire, so I've stopped using as much butter as Paula Deen - just until 'Breaking Dawn' is over.

The bubble hasn't popped yet and there's tremendous value in social media. ... But it's wishful thinking to believe that others on the 'me too' bandwagon will survive.

The way I see it, there are just 2 ways to go, livin' fast or dyin' slow! Which way you gonna go?

With stores like Topshop and H&M you can find really great stuff, but I do like designer things as well, and I'm lucky because they approach me to wear their stuff. I really love Miu Miu.

Every gentleman plays billiards, but someone who plays billiards too well, is no gentleman.