When we had to do book reports, I would pick a book that no one read and just make it up and turn that in. I got praised for my imagination.

I collect things that just look retarded.

I had this whole ritual with my mother making the bed with me inside it so I would be invisible.

The way this whole novel thing came together was, I sold them one bill of goods and then didn't communicate very well. I am like Captain Run-on Sentence.

My father would often work all night and sleep during the day, so for us, dinner might be pancakes, and breakfast might be beef stroganoff.

I've always wanted to have a book published - it was a dream of mine, but the thought of actually writing a book made me feel really sick.

I would ask my parents something, but then go to my siblings. We were encouraged to bounce ideas off everyone.

I think what my father appreciated was the science experiment of life. He had these kids, and they had their own experiences. He wanted us to discover the world for ourselves.

I didn't read at all until I was 12. I just couldn't. It was too frustrating.

At 12 I dropped out of school but I had lost interest in it at a much earlier age. For me, school was very very stressful.

I definitely have managed to overcome dyslexia now to become a fully functional human being but things were a lot more difficult when I was younger.

Despite the violence and war, this world is the most peaceful place with the most beautiful nature in the universe.

Life itself had become disembodied. My family, the spine of my days, had crumbled. I was lost in invertebrate time.

Death is the same for the one who dies.

We have learned the answers, all the answers: it is the question that we do not know.

The right to happiness is fundamental; men live so little time and die alone.

A thing may in itself be the finest piece of writing one has ever done, and yet have absolutely no place in the manuscript one hopes to publish.

The more women walk around in sweat pants, the harder it is to tell who's out jogging and who's running away from a mugger.

Your unhappiness doesn't help anyone else - and in fact, as I mentioned in another answer, happy people are more altruistically inclined. So happiness is not a selfish goal.

Grace is always natural, though that does not prevent its being often used to hide a lie.

You have to challenge people to reconsider what is art, what is taste. Because it's someone's point-of-view.