You make me miserable. You really do, I want you to know that. Much as I love you, much as I need you, much as I can't exist without you, you make me miserable.

You reach deep down and bring up what feels absolutely authentic to you as you move along with the book, but you don't know everything about it. You can't.

The truth is, laughter always sounds more perfect than weeping. Laughter flows in a violent riff and is effortlessly melodic. Weeping is often fought, choked, half strangled, or surrendered to with humiliation.

I don't believe in anything, Mother," I said. "You told Armand long ago that you believe you'll find answers in the great jungles and forests; that the stars will finally reveal a vast truth. But I don't believe in anything. And that makes me stronger than you think

And I realized that I’d tolerated him this long because of self-doubt.

Sometimes dreams show me that my writing should go deeper. Dreams have not so much changed my work as deepened it.

I never lie," I said offhand. "At least not to those I don't love.