Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.

Keeping people safe is a story we tell ourselves.

Hope is a horrible thing, you know. I don't know who decided to package hope as a virtue because it's not. It's a plague. Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody just keeps pulling it and pulling it.

We have different kinds of intimacy with many, many people. I'm disappointed by well-written novels that only deal with two or three people.

Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings.

If I had problems, I kept them to myself. I didn't make a scene.

She sang as if she was saving the life of every person in the room.