The gods are fond of the cryptic and dislike the evident.

You are accidentally leaving your DNA all over everything in a novel because it's all coming from you.

The world needs women who stop asking for permission from the principal. Permission to live their lives as they deeply know they often should. I think we still look to authority figures for validation, recognition, permission.

As for discipline—it's important, but sort of overrated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you.

Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.

Nobody's really paying that much attention to your massive personal dramas.

It's not an accident that both my sister and I are writers. Our parents created an accidental Petri dish. My family has great storytellers, and I grew up in a very funny, conversational house and didn't have television. This small family farm was a bubble world that didn't have much to do with reality.