The purpose of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written.

I grew up in a house without many books. The books the nuns made us read in school didn't interest me.

In revision, your imagination becomes deeply engaged with your material. It's when you come to know your characters and begin to perceive their motivations and values.

A pure love is a selfless love, but can desire ever be selfless?

The landscape of childhood shapes us as it shapes the characters in our stories. You never forget the sacred places of your childhood.

Drug programs began to turn their attention and money away from prevention and into maintenance. Methadone was cheaper than social workers, I suppose.

A lack of narrative structure, as you know, will cause anxiety.

You lose a wallet or keys or something and you notice in a second, but your life can go missing and you don't even know it.

Every act of loving affirms the goodness of the lover just because he is capable of loving and being loved.

Love is always a surprise and you never get it right.

I was reading for understanding. I wanted to do to a reader what Salinger did for me.

He calls me desperate (on my tombstone)I hope poetic license will allow: HUNGRY

Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.

We don't have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we do it.

Memory is man's greatest friend and worst enemy.

Rules of society are nothing; one's conscience is the umpire.

It seems there's a sliding scale between the money they spend on a movie and its creativity.

I am convinced that if we as a society work diligently in every other area of life and neglect the family, it would be analogous to straightening deck chairs on the Titanic.

Young people are careless of their virginity; one day they may have it and the next not.

There is nothing to be embarrassed about being profitable.