My family had a lot of characteristics - achievements, ambitions, talents, expectations - that all seemed to be recessive in me.

Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It's you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever.

The only way to stay sane is to go a little crazy.

Every window in Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco.

I am not a nurse escorting six lunatics to the ice cream parlor.

I told her once I wasn’t good at anything. She told me survival is a talent.

I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can't. You hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside.

My chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom came from the fact that I was living a life based on my incapacities, which were numerous.

Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.

An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.

As far as I could see, life demanded skills I didn't have.

There is nothing like becoming a mom to fill you with fear.

I understand friendship and I can understand why Barak Obama did it, but I think Brexit is something that he shouldn't have done.

Your body is the direct result of what you eat as well as what you don't eat.

Don't a fellow feel good after he gets out of a store where he nearly bought something.

I was born in the seventies, age of bad haircuts and grainy colour photos.

I don't know who took what. That is pretty private with an individual.

Allowing yourself to be vulnerable is also one of the most attractive things you can do.

Sweat more during peace: bleed less during war

I think we are isolating ourselves, and in so isolating ourselves, I think we're minimizing ourselves, I don't think we are taken as seriously today as we were a few years ago.

I don't want to write a novel per year. I know that I need a break of one or two years. So maybe I invent some new, urgent activity so I don't fall into the trap of starting a new novel.