What I love is how pissed off Jane Eyre is. She's in a rage for the whole novel and the payoff is she gets to marry this blind guy who's toasted his wife in the attic." -Angela Argo "Blue Angel

Like most-maybe all- writers, I learned to write by writing and, by example, by reading books.

All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another.

Reading was like eating alone, with that same element of bingeing.

When we humans speak, we are not merely communicating information but attempting to make an impression and achieve a goal.

A lot of girls who turn into something remarkable start off as irrepressible, confident and a handful.

Like seeing a photograph of yourself as a child, encountering handwriting that you know was once yours but that now seems only dimly familiar can inspire a confrontation with the mystery of time.

We never believe we're beautiful, no matter how many times we hear it. We never believe it until someone says it in the right way.

I’ve always found that the better the book I’m reading, the smarter I feel, or, at least, the more able I am to imagine that I might, someday, become smarter.

I know a lot of Eastern Europeans, and because of what they have been through and what they have seen, they have an attitude where they are not easily fooled.

I can no more reread my own books than I can watch old home movies or look at snapshots of myself as a child. I wind up sitting on the floor, paralyzed by grief and nostalgia.

Why, you mean you didn't get abducted and dragged across country purely to make us a story for us to chew over endlessly?" asked Pip, tossing his shock of tow-colored hair indignantly. "The nerve!

Be inspired to dare great things.

Visits always give pleasure--if not the arrival, the departure.

All suffering comes from a person's inability to sit still and be alone.

L.A. is such a big city, and theres so much going on. I mean, you know youre in L.A. when you can just hear sirens all the time.

I'm a child of the woods. I have that sort of sensibility.

I don't associate work with feelings of satisfaction. Rather, guilt, frustration, and resentment of people who write better than I do.

Just as typography is human speech translated into what can be read, so photography is the translation of reality into a readable image.

People don't change under governments. Governments change. People remain the same.