The rules that I adhere to are the rules of minimalism. And those rules kind of force writing to be more filmic... to have the immediacy and accessibility of film so that the reader really has to fill in a lot of the details.

Marla's philosophy of life, she told me, is that she can die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn't.

Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can hurt like hell.

If you're male and you're Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never at home, what do you believe about God?

Women are already born so far ahead ability-wise. The day men can give birth, that's when we can start talking about equal rights.

There's worse that people can steal from you than money.

some soap opera, you know, real people pretending to be fake people with made-up problems being watched by real people to forget their real problems.