I do that with all of my characters. They have one of the flaws I have, and I zero in on that flaw.

If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.

Absent parents aren't abusive per se. They're neglectful. They love in a very imperfect way. There are parents like that, and they do love their daughters and sons, but they're not parents in the way that we might think of it.

Mostly, I think people are fake. Well, what do you expect? The fake world we live in conspires to make us all fakes.

If you want to be a writer, you don't want to live in a comfortable place.

For a moment, I thought of the word happy and it was a word that just, well, it felt like it was visiting me. I knew it wouldn’t last for very long and I’d be sad again and then it would be worse because it’s one thing to be sad and it’s another thing to be sad once you’ve been happy. Being sad after you’ve been happy is the worst thing in the world.

I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn't get--and never would get.