Perfection is the satin-lined casket of creativity and originality. If you are a perfectionist, at least stop telling everybody you're one and try to get over it yourself, alone in your home with the lights off

Even painfully shy and awkward people are not painfully shy or awkward when they are alone. The way to access this natural, comfortable alone-self when you are with others is by choosing to forbid yourself to wonder what "they" are thinking. Instead, force yourself to exist in the instant, then take it- and give it- as it comes.

Nothing made sense to me anymore. I knew I was young, I knew I was small. But I was worried that I might already be ruined.

The most important thing for a writer to do is to write. It really doesn't matter what you write as long as you are able to write fluidly, very quickly, very effortlessly. It needs to become not second nature but really first nature to you. And read; you need to read and you need to read excellent books and then some bad books. Not as many bad books, but some bad books, so that you can see what both look like and why both are what they are.

And I hope she does not live in a dark world. Because even the most terrible loss doesn't have to make you darker; it can make you deeper.

Part of me believes that love is more valuable when you have to work for it.

If I were blind I'd rather have another blind person leading me around because they know what I'm dealing with and they're experiencing the same things.