When you're embarking on a piece of writing, the anxiety is just too much, especially when you're young and you're trying to figure out if this is your thing or not. You feel like, "if I don't write a good story, I gotta get going to law school!"

I think that feels like it to me. I mean whenever you talk about writing I think you have to remember that it all has a big question mark over it - every word has a big question mark over it.

My understanding of kindness is that we are hoping to be truly beneficial in every situation, and that this desire means a whole suite of things: being nicer, sure, but also being more aware, more present, more articulate, more fearless, less habituated, etc., etc. And sometimes even being firm, or having an edge, or even being angry.

I don't mind being criticized intelligently; although I don't love it.

I think that fiction has a part to play in urging us, as a species, toward compassion.

Goodbye. I am leaving because I am bored.

I had an experience a few years ago where I was on a plane in which one of the engines went out. I couldn't even remember my name. I was just repeating the word no over and over.