What he needed was to find fifty more people like him, who had stopped being themselves without realizing it.

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.

The ultimate function of prophecy is not to tell the future, but to make it. Your successful past will block your visions of the future.

A good debater can be a good communicator. You have to communicate when you're president of the United States, and communicate effectively with the American people, and with the world.

I enjoy the freedom of modern dance as well as the constraints of classical dance.

When you do not like human beings, you cannot make good portraits.

I think that Sarah Palin really missed the chance to educate the public on what some of the challenges her son is actually facing.

Now you're selling out, the devil sold a dream and you bought it without thinking about. How the beast will decrease the brain wave, with material thoughts from the crib to the grave.

Walking articulates both physical and mental freedom.

Just as science is more immediate and exciting than the history of science, so is insight more compelling than a history of insight.

But really death seems the least awful thing that can happen to someone

To see the unreal is wisdom. Beyond this lies the inexpressible.