I moved to New York with the derangement of love. I was writing all these terrible stories, but I had never been happier.

The beginning of the end can feel a lot like the middle when you are living in it.

When you're a kid, it's hard to tell the innocuous secrets from the ones that will kill you if you keep them.

Fiction helps me to reconnect with the true, deep weirdness inherent in everyday reality, in our dealings with one another, in just being alive.

It was sad and fierce all at once, alive with a lonely purity.

My older sister has entire kingdoms inside of her, and some of them are only accessible at certain seasons, in certain kinds of weather.

I spent most of my 20s with these alligator wrestlers in the swamps of South Florida.

It is a special kind of homelessness to be evicted from your dreams.

Self-disciplin e is necessary, but so is playfulness, flexibility, joy. When you stop demanding perfection of yourself, your writing desk will become a spacious place.

There are certain prehistoric things that swim beyond extinction.

You small mortals don't realize the power of your stories.

[W]hat should I have done? Gather dirt in my purse?

Stress is a signal that something needs to change. Suffering, is when we don't make the change!

Everybody's funny in different ways.

Drive slow and enjoy the scenery - drive fast and join the scenery.

When people say 'You're so beautiful' it makes me want to kill myself! As an actress you want to be seen for what you do, for the characters you can play, otherwise I'd be a model

Jealousy is not love, but self-love.

I'd rather be right than President.

Even in the worm that crawls in the earth there glows a divine spark. When you slaughter a creature, you slaughter God.

Nobody should claim that the war [in Iraq] is over. But certainly it can be said that the regime is finished.

I usually run three or four times a week now. Pretty boring, but it's so worth is. It's done wonders for my mood