The tricky thing about being a writer, or about being any kind of artist, is that in addition to making art you also have to make a living.

Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.

Part of it is living in Tennessee. I'm so out of the loop. And as a person, I'm out of the loop. I'm oblivious by nature.

Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.

No matter how much we love a book, the experience of reading it isn't complete until we can give it to someone who will love it as much as we do

Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.

You are always someones favorite unfolding story

Just because things hadn't gone the way I had planned didn't necessarily mean they had gone wrong.

I can write for any magazine now, in any voice. I can do it in two hours, I could do it in my sleep, it's like writing a grocery list.

There can be something cruel about people who have had good fortune. They equate it with personal goodness.

Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined.

Otis barreled towards them empty-handed, before apparently realizing that a) he was empty-handed and b) charging towards a large body of water to fight a son of Poseidon was maybe not a good idea.

Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perennially rejuvenated illusions.

I was lucky enough to be given books that weren't top sellers; books that were kind of under the radar

The attraction of a life devoted to sensation, pleasure and self would probably wear thin one day, but there was still plenty of time for that yet.

I'd like to lose interest in myself.

I'm generally intimidated by adults.

What we sometimes consider a stumbling block is rather a rock we can step on.

You know that feeling you get when your leg falls asleep? Well, I suddenly had that feeling in my spine. Like termites were chewing through the marrow in my backbone.

My great crime in the world is blunder I will get into scrapes without intention or any bad motive.

On stage, generally speaking, the story is stopped or held back by songs, because that's the convention. Audiences enjoy the song and the singer, that's the point.