Confidence is a reduction of your own interest in whether others are thinking about you and if so, what they're thinking.

Before I'm a writer, I'm definitely a reader and when I read memoir, I really want it to be true.

[Christmas] holidays are a heavy, heavy time. We make light of them with our red and green and our stockings and candy canes, but people think heavy thoughts over the holidays because that's when you're thinking about family. Are we close? Or are we not as close as other people?

Acceptance, when it comes, arrives in waves: Listen with your chest. You will feel a pendulum swing within you, favoring one direction or another. And that is your answer. The answer is always inside your chest. The right choice weighs more. That's how you know. It causes you to lean in its direction.

After was better. Before was only there so After could happen.

I hate feelings. Why does sobriety have to come with feelings?

I think people might think, oh, I don't want to approach the big famous author because it's embarrassing, but then they think for two seconds about it and realize, this is, like, a toilet bowl reader.