You have an incredible body." He reaches out to touch my stomach. I feel no pleasure in his compliment or his touch, only impatience. This is the only feeling. I feel like the paper on which my mood chart is printed.

Decisions are beautiful. They are the evidence of thought and care. Decisions are the polishing cloths of life.

Even when we lose an arm or a leg, there's not less of us but more. Human experience weighs more than human tissue.

I was in advertising for years. That was cushy, you know? It's pretty cushy in a lot of ways, but I hated it.

Throwing things horrified me. I suffered extreme, paralyzing anxiety when it came to anything remotely athletic. I wouldn't even run to catch the school bus because I knew I'd trip and then get teased for a year.

Marriage is overdone. As long as there are people, people are going to find it interesting.

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.