This is a bad story.” “Sorry. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.” “No, you should,” I say. “But—” “I don’t want there to be bad stories and me not know them.

The world is always changing brightness and hotness and soundness, I never know how it's going to be the next minute.

Me and Ma have a deal, we're going to try everything one time so we know what we like.

You cannot predict literary success; the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well.

I wrote the novel [Room], and then I thought, "This could work on film, and I want to be the one to do it." So I went ahead and drafted it.

I look back one more time. It's like a crater, a hole where something happened.

People are locked up in all sorts of ways.