If I waited to be in the mood to write, I'd barely have a chapbook of material to my name. Who would ever be in the mood to write? Do marathon runners get in the mood to run? Do teachers wake up with the urge to lecture? I don't know, but I doubt it. My guess is that it's the very act that is generative. The doing of the thing that makes possible the desire for it.

Music inspires me and puts me in the right mood, but to actually listen to it when I write - I find it gets in the way.

As writers, it is our job not only to imagine, but to witness.

When I was writing my first novel, I smoked cigarettes. And when I think about what it was like to smoke, I remember exactly the feeling of sitting in front of my big old computer in that little room where I wrote my first novel.

If we grew up with nothing, we're complicated with that. That's the thing I keep hearing from people.

Everything changes. The more I try to hold on to the moment, the more it slips through my fingers.

Our pain is a part of who we authentically are.