In a creative journey, it is essential, no matter how far one runs, to examine that which is closest to home.

If I dismiss the ordinary—waiting for the special, the extreme, the extraordinary to happen - I may just miss my life.

I think so much about how we read, about the nature of solitude, and of community, is changing in ways that none of us yet understand.

You have to believe in yourself before the world has given you any indication that you should believe in yourself as a writer.

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

I don't want to lean back into the past, or forward into the future. I don't want to wish the present moment away.

My parents made the decision never to focus on my looks, and I had no sense of myself as beautiful.