You will learn a lot about yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love.

Being so alone and so silent for so long gave me the opportunity to see how our brains actually work. I think of that so often in my regular life, as I'm always interacting with people or with my computer or phone.

A lot of people go off and have fun adventures, or hard adventures, and their impulse is to write about them right away. What really makes a difference is having some perspective on what happened.

The wanting was a wilderness and I had to find my own way out of the woods.

The writing life doesn't move in a straight line. I've had successes and rejections all along the way, at every stage of my career, and I will continue to do so. Acceptances and rejections don't define me. They're both part of what it means to be a writer. My job is to simply keep doing the work.

When going on a date with someone they met online, the number-one fear that straight women have is going on a date with a serial killer. The number-one fear straight men have is going on a date with a fat woman. That says everything.

There is a path toward the light. The one that goes blink, blink, blink inside your chest when you know what you're doing is right. Listen to it. Trust it. Let it make you stronger than you are.