That's emails for ya: sometimes they're like an arrow that hits so deep in the target, you can't pull it out.

Rationally speaking, blaming one's behavior on alcohol or drugs is like blaming the ladder by which you descended into a pit, or the staircase that took you down to a cellar, for what you found there.

George Orwells 1984 frequently tops surveys of our greatest books: its not a celebration of poetic language. Its decidedly anti-literary, a masterpiece of personal and political narrative sequence. And its subject matter is crucial, because what 1984 shows is that language can be a dirty trick.

Why can’t our job here on earth be simply to inspire each other?

The trouble with forgiveness is that some people don't want to be forgiven.

I've been a professional writer for 20 years, and there are contours in that time, crescents and troughs.

If I couldn't get published tomorrow I'd still be writing. It's something to do with feeling so overwhelmed by this experience of life that you have to tell someone about it, and in a way that reorders the experience to make it manageable.