The answers were maddeningly absent—it was like trying to remember a song that you knew made you feel a certain way, without a title, artist, or even a few bars to bring it back.

I was a stepchild in two different families. The hardest thing about being a stepchild is you know that in some way everything would be easier if you didnt exist.

If I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.

Read at the level at which you want to write. Reading is the nourishment that feeds the kind of writing you want to do.

Goon Squad' took about three years to write and that's the short end. My second novel, 'Look at Me,' took six years.

I don’t want to fade away, I want to flame away - I want my death to be an attraction, a spectacle, a mystery. A work of art.

Because you can't write habitually and well all the time, you have to be willing to write badly. That's how you get the regularity that enables you to be present for the good stuff.

Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work.

I'm always happy," Sasha said. "Sometimes I just forget.

Vinegar: that's what fear smells like.

I think ethical ambivalence is a kind of innoculation, a way of excusing yourself in advance for something you actually want to do. No offense.

It is easy to hold on, but it is difficult to let it go.

Where are there lots of colors, Colton?" "In Heaven, Dad. That's where all the rainbow colors are!

I would say Gary Snyder, who is from my part of the world as a poet and environmental thinker, will be read just as Henry Thoreau as John Muir will continue to be read.

I'm a young woman and I'm going to write about what I know.

Your reputation is what people say about you. Your character is what God and your wife know about you.

This world nys but a thurghfare ful of wo, And we been pilgrymes, passynge to and fro.

Nobody has a magic lamp which can tell you in advance whether what you say will be effective in persuading an audience.

Sometimes our arms are so full with the burdens we carry that it hinders our view of the load those around us are staggering beneath.

I'm really afraid of getting hit by cars, like terrified of it. I'm terrified of crossing streets. I'm also very accident-prone...I think people aim for me.

I'd rather go along with this sense of illusion that I'm a neutral beast going along through life doing everything that's preordained.