I've always really enjoyed sharing my work with others. I find it really hard if I don't think the work will exist outside of my own apartment.

I was the first person in my family born in the United States. My mom is from Croatia, and my dad is from Iran. They met at music school in Belgium. I grew up as a pianist.

I love art because I feel that it's evidence of the great shared universal power. I like art that feels real, that cuts the bullshit.

If you look at the horror genre, that work is all about making people uncomfortable by stimulating our fear of death.

You can't be a free spirit in a place that feels like it was built on lockdown.

For me writing isn't a mental exercise, it's barely even a literary exercise, it feels like a spiritual experience.

I hope that I'm the kind of person who would step in between somebody holding a gun at somebody else. I would like to be that stupid. I'd like to be that in love with life.

I don't like talking too much about my personal life, but it all goes into my work.

I had to brainwash myself, like what I was doing was going to be really, really good, and then just accept whatever happened.

I was really interested in piano and sort of discovered that I was a writer when I was about 13 and started writing. And it was my secret thing and my passion.

Anyway, I don't trust those people who poke around sad people's minds and tell them how interesting it all is up there. It's not interesting.

To be able to see one’s own faults

Kindness knows no kind.

How do you design it so that people can form a space of their own, and feel quiet and contemplative?

Leadership is not a popularity contest it's about leaving your ego at the door. The name of the game is to lead without a title.

Martial arts should be part of every girl's education.

Sin is too big to be handled alone.

I try not to listen to the shoulds or coulds, and try to get beyond expectations, peer pressure, or trying to please - and just listen. I believe all the answers are ultimately within us.

I never wanted to be a writer; I just had stories I wanted to share so I learnt how to write and kept going. If I could sing or paint, I would.

Cruelty does not make a person dishonest, the same way bravery does not make a person kind.

What makes life worth living? Better surely, to yield to the stain of suicide blood in me and seek forgetfulness in the embrace of cold dark death.