If anybody had shown me the paperwork for how my life was going to look in five years, I would have said, "No. That is not where I want to go."

I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing.

If you want to write and can't figure out how to do it, try this: Pick an amount of time to sit at your desk every day. Start with twenty minutes, say, and work up as quickly as possible to as much time as you can spare. Do you really want to write? Sit for two hours a day.

Some people need a huge amount of attention, and they are worthy of that attention, and they're still exhausting.

I know that there are people out there who believe we should get rid of all guns.

If a person has never given writing a try, they assume that a brilliant idea is hard to come by. But really, even if it takes some digging, ideas are out there. Just open your eyes and look at the world. Writing the ideas down, it turns out, is the real trick.

Sometimes if there's a book you really want to read, you have to write it yourself.