The past doesn't matter. People cling to it because it allows them to ignore the present.

The feeling of arms around me, of love in my heart, it was more powerful than any of the negativity I knew was existing in the world for me. That feeling of love killed it all.

I just started trying to figure out how to write [something] which was unlike anything anybody had ever seen, and once I felt like I had figured that out I tried to figure out what kind of book I could write that would be unlike anything anybody had ever seen. When I started writing A Million Little Pieces I felt like it was the right story with the style I had been looking for, and I just kept going.

You only live once, buy Picassos whenever possible.

Being a writer now is about so much more than writing. There's publishing, touring, marketing, web presence.

There are never words for the strongest of our feelings. There is just the pain that we cannot share. Pain we must all feel alone.

To say that you can't see echoes of the past in what I do would be absurd. Everything that has preceded me has affected me.