And I tend to listen to NPR when I'm not writing.

It turned out I had always been a smoker. I just hadn't had any cigarettes.

I'm like the guy who prepares your taxes or a dentist. I'm very conservative and boring in a lot of ways.

The problem with not having anybody to tell you what to do, I understood, is that there was nobody to tell you what not to do.

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

God, I felt certain, did not mind that I didn’t press my hands together to pray. I was casual, but I was sincere. I knew that God existed as the Correct Answer inside my chest.

I never get sick of writing my own stories because there's a certain comfort in knowing you will never run out of material. It's relaxing, actually, to write.