They were snobs or idiots or both...yet she was inexplicably crushed by their coldness.

I was a stepchild in two different families. The hardest thing about being a stepchild is you know that in some way everything would be easier if you didnt exist.

If I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.

Read at the level at which you want to write. Reading is the nourishment that feeds the kind of writing you want to do.

Goon Squad' took about three years to write and that's the short end. My second novel, 'Look at Me,' took six years.

I don’t want to fade away, I want to flame away - I want my death to be an attraction, a spectacle, a mystery. A work of art.

Because you can't write habitually and well all the time, you have to be willing to write badly. That's how you get the regularity that enables you to be present for the good stuff.

Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work.

I'm always happy," Sasha said. "Sometimes I just forget.

The answers were maddeningly absent—it was like trying to remember a song that you knew made you feel a certain way, without a title, artist, or even a few bars to bring it back.

Vinegar: that's what fear smells like.

Our worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace.

Her dreamy countenance infuriated me more than her words. I had seen that expression directed at me once upon a time.

The harmony of the world is made manifest in Form and Number, and the heart and soul and all the poetry of Natural Philosophy are embodied in the concept of mathematical beauty.

The Root of All Rebellion: It is because we are not near enough to Thee to partake of thy liberty that we want a liberty of our own different from thine.

In my own mind, I am still a fat brunette from Toledo, and I always will be.

You better hope you’re not alone.

If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.

Here is another marvy glimpse into the gothic basement that I call my mind.

Calling each other faggots behind the keys of a message board.

I had never dreamt Id become an actress. It was destiny that put me in the right place at the right time and gave me the right opportunities.