The way America works, and the way L.A. works, is a very small percentage of people get what they want out of life, and a much greater percentage try very very hard and they don't. That's just the way it is.

Lying became part of my life. I lied if I needed to lie to get something or get out of something

I don't want to walk in the middle. I want people to read what I write and feel strongly about it. If, at some point, whatever I am doing is failing to elicit a response, whether it's very positive or very negative, then I am going to stop doing it.

I try to write books that are different from the books I've already written. I think one of the thing I really try to do is reinvent how a novel can be written.

When I was a screenwriter, I was doing it for mercenary reasons.

I say to myself if you believe deeply in your heart you must defy, and if you are willing to pay for your defiance, you must always do it, even though the pain may be much. Too many times in our lives we do not do it, and we pay even more.

Light streamed through one of the windows and across her face and I have never seen anything or anyone so beautiful in my life. If my heart had stopped at that moment I would have fallen happy and fallen full and I would have seen in life all that I had wanted to see and all that I needed to see. Fall. Let me fall.