When you're thinking about the rest of your life, you're never really thinking more than a couple years down the road.

With insomnia, you're never really awake; but you're never really asleep.

These distraction-oholics. These focus-ophobics.

The money is in television. Books are not the dominant medium of our time, so fewer people will create them. In a sad way, books have become a form of "comfort food" we expect to lull us to sleep.

This is the biggest mistake I could think would save me. I wanted to give up the idea that I had any control. Shake things up. To be saved by chaos. To see if I could cope, I wanted to force myself to grow again. To explode my comfort zone.

I'm really glad that I spent my twenties messing around and having disaster after disaster - with people who were doing likewise - because it's really my greatest treasure now.

A short story is something that you can hold in your mind. You can really analyze how the entire thing works, like a machine