Writing is a leap of faith. But how wonderful that the person you're putting faith in is yourself.

But words are water in Amsterdam, they flood your ears and set the rot, and the church's east corner is crowded.

The bars on our cage are of our own making.

Love is best a phantom than reality, better in the chase than caught.

But how right is it to kill a man for something that is in his soul?

Pity, unlike hate, can be boxed and put away.

Every woman is the architect of her own fortune.

What are we all chasing? Nella wonders. To live, of course. To be unbound from the invisible ropes that Johannes spoke of in his study. Or to be happy in them, at least.

A piece of art only succeeds when it's creator...possesses the belief that brings it into being

You are a stone, thrown upon a lake. But the ripples you create will never make you still.

This city is like no other city in the world. It is brilliant but it is bloated, and I've never called it home

Personally, I believe in tools that close the gap between professionals and beginners, understanding that — push comes to shove — this is a world of beginners.

In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts.

It's a really bad idea to be in a band and get involved with each other.

Someone once told me growth and comfort do not coexist. And I think it’s a really good thing to remember.

Trying to observe the slow shift from self-centeredness to empathy is like trying to watch grass grow.

We need diversity in our population to make it work.

The greatest adventure that can happen to a human being is the movement from mind to no-mind, the movement from personality to individuality. The no-mind has an individuality: the mind is social.

I am only 8 years old, I told myself. No little boy of 8 has ever murdered anyone. It's not possible.

In the beginning I just was dreaming about working in fashion at all, no matter what the role would be, and it just seemed so unlikely. I was living in San Diego and it seemed so far away.

Being a writer is an endless study in human transition and lessons learned or forgotten or misapplied.