There are people we treat wrong and later, we're prepared to treat other people right.

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

WHEN I WAS LOST IN DARKNESS, I FELT MYSELF LIKE ARMLESS, MY HEART BECOME HOPELESS, ALL I HAD WAS MY WEAKNESS, TILL I FIND MORNING BRIGHTNESS

The government of the United States is a device for maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of all privileged classes.

People have come, surpassed my soul and left.I have become hollow and the hollow space inside, hurts.

We are all mediums for our own basic truths. All we really have in life is the primal force that moves us through our days – our unvarnished, untutored, ever-present, inborn agency.

If you're successful and stressed out, you're succeeding in spite of your stress, not because of it.

We need not a new set of beliefs, but a new way of believing, not simply new answers to the same old questions, but a new set of questions.

To understand our own thinking is to understand all thinking.

I used to trip over my legs and get detention for my too-short shorts because none fit. I still trip, but now I like to show them off.

Some refuse the loan of life to avoid the debt of death.

Some guys smoke. Some guys drink. Some guys chase women. I'm a big barbecue-sauce guy.