With the novels, I usually start from something in my own life that I can't resolve, so I turn it into a metaphor and for months or sometimes years I'll exhaust all of my emotional reaction to this issue by making it enormous on the page.

Suicide is very contagious.

We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are…Or we can decide for ourselves.

If you make people laugh too much, their blood becomes - I believe it is acidic as opposed to alkaline. It changes the oxygen level in the blood, and people are likelier to pass out at that point.

I'm in love. So kill me.

We all want to explain ourselves. Nobody wants to be forgotten.

The truth is, immigrants tend to be more American than people born here.