It's good not only to realize that you can't please all of the people all of the time, but that you don't want to. There's a certain type of reader that you don't ever want to write for.

There are so many more important things to worry about than how you're perceived by strangers.

A pretty face had been damaged by acne scars and she wore and extra forty pounds on her frame like a threat. Her eyes were dull with anger disguised as apathy. If she kept on her current path, she'd grow into the type of person who fed her kids Doritos for breakfast and purchased angry bumper stickers with lots of exclamation points. But right now, she was just another in a long line of pissed-off small-town girls with a shitty outlook.

Whatever she saw beyond the camera lens, beyond the photographer, beyond anything in the known world probably - wasn't fit to be seen.

You've learned that every good lie is threaded with truth and every accepted truth leaks lies.

Do you know the primary difference between men and gods? ... Gods don’t think they can become men

I believe so deeply in the primacy of language, in lifting your prose to the highest level you're capable of and making your words symphonic.