My boarding school experience was the only thing I had strong enough feelings to write about for hundreds and hundreds of pages. I can still smell the formaldehyde of the fetal pigs in biology.

Perhaps this is how you know you're doing the thing you're intended to: No matter how slow or how slight your progress, you never feel that it's a waste of time.

Probably I, like a lot of people, became a writer in imitation of or in homage to the books I enjoyed. When you're so captivated by something, you think, could I do that? Hmm, let me try

We all make mistakes, don't we? But if you can't forgive yourself, you'll always be an exile in your own life.

People who think my books are autobiographical, which they're not, credit me with having a much better memory than I do. I do, however, have a powerful imagination

I don't really have special rituals, but I don't try to write fiction unless I have a minimum of a few hours. For me, it takes a while to settle into a mode where I'm truly concentrating

We have to make mistakes, its how we learn compassion for others

I always worried someone would notice me, and then when no one did, I felt lonely.

Obviously the bar is much higher now for a behavior to be scandalous. Social media has really changed the way people live. It's not a new impulse; it's just being enacted in a new way.

I don't think it's shameful to admit that some days your time can be better spent reading than writing.

I have this theory that the likeability question comes up so much more with female characters created by female authors than it does with male characters and male authors

The Aim ain't about being perfect..It's about not trying being perfect.

I can get plenty of men, keeping them is the hard part.

I'm enjoying writing songs that are more stripped back.

By disgracing and degrading the presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.

Painting must be fertile. It must give birth to a world.. ..it must fertilize the imagination.

Above all else, know this: Be prepared at all times for the gifts of God and be ready always for new ones. For God is a thousand times more ready to give than we are to receive

Take what is offered and that must sometimes be enough.

We live in media, as fish live in water.

When things don't go well, it helps to think of yourself as a genius and the rest of the world as a bunch of idiots.