The facts, however, are unimportant in fiction. It's not the events of my life that I mine, but the emotional experiences I've had.

I grew up in a house without many books. The books the nuns made us read in school didn't interest me.

In revision, your imagination becomes deeply engaged with your material. It's when you come to know your characters and begin to perceive their motivations and values.

A pure love is a selfless love, but can desire ever be selfless?

The landscape of childhood shapes us as it shapes the characters in our stories. You never forget the sacred places of your childhood.

Drug programs began to turn their attention and money away from prevention and into maintenance. Methadone was cheaper than social workers, I suppose.

A lack of narrative structure, as you know, will cause anxiety.

You lose a wallet or keys or something and you notice in a second, but your life can go missing and you don't even know it.

Every act of loving affirms the goodness of the lover just because he is capable of loving and being loved.

Love is always a surprise and you never get it right.

The purpose of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written.

A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.

work at our responsibility as parents as if everything in life counted on it, because in fact everything in life does count on it.

If your are afraid to fail then you're afraid to succeed.

Don't look shy if you wear rag and people gag, many are in the grave wearing skeleton, and you should even be happier for wearing a skin without clothes.

Scared money can’t win and a worried man can’t love.

She press'd his hand in slumber; so once more He could not help but kiss her and adore.

Time, money, etc... are human-made constructs. They are not real. They are completely made up.

With Instagram, the focus is on the present tense.

It is only alone, truly alone that one bursts apart, springs forth.

The novel may stimulate you to think. It may satisfy your aesthetic sense. It may arouse your moral emotions. But if it does not entertain you it is a bad novel.