You have to be your own person. You can't let people's opinions determine how you think about yourself. There's a difference between identity and self-identity.

I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn't realize that there is something called originality and your own voice.

And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind.

How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently?

I wanted to write stories for myself. At first it was purely an aesthetic thing about craft. I just wanted to become good at the art of something. And writing was very private.

I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.

Isn't hate merely the result of wounded love?