I build a book the way coral reefs are built: millions of little calcareous skeletons piling up one atop another, though in my case the skeletons are drafts.

Writing isn't a source of pain. It's psychic chemotherapy. It reduces your psychological tumors and relieves your pain.

He said, if you allow yourself to be enchanted by the beauty to be seen in even ordinary things, then all things proved to be extraordinary.

Always, beneath every apparent chaos, order waits to be revealed.

I've since discovered that many human beings need no supernatural mentoring to commit acts of savagery; some people are devils in their own right, their telltale horns having grown inward to facilitate their disguise.

The only thing I know for sure is how much I do not know.

Home was not a perfect place. But it was the only home they had and they could hope to make it better.