I looked at Lucas with the pang that a parent feels when he knows his child will be hurt and that it's no one's fault and that to try to preempt the rites of passage is an act of contempt for the child's courage.

In that moment, when watches and clocks misbehave and you feel a cold vapor wrap itself around your heart, you unconsciously draw a line at the bottom of a long column of numbers and come up with a sum. Perhaps it's one that fills you with contentment and endows you with a level of courage and an acceptance that you didn't know you possessed.Or maybe not.

Write for the love of your art. Someplace down the road, the money, the fame, they'll come, but by that time you won't be thinking in terms of money or fame.

Using a first-person narrator is simply a matter of hearing the voice inside yourself.

One day you'll have a quiet heart.

We gain no wisdom by imposing our way on others.

I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I'm going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box.