It's much better to be apart and wish you were together than to be together and wish you were apart.

All peace-loving women shut up when they sense they have stepped onto Guy Turf. Guy Turf is a murky realm of ego and pride and chivalry and testosterone and heroism.

Isolation is aloneness that feels forced upon you, like a punishment. Solitude is aloneness you choose and embrace. I think great things can come out of solitude, out of going to a place where all is quiet except the beating of your heart.

Maybe the biggest problem with loneliness is that we walk around thinking we're the only ones suffering from it.

I think the call of the inward life starts here. Solitude helps you differentiate, define the borders of the self. Solitude helps you figure our where everybody else stops and you begins.

Why do we think the people on stage are the only ones having fun?

But the writing life, it turned out, was difficult. It wasn't like you could sit down and flip a switch and crank on the ventilation system. Sometimes it didn't work, and sometimes you couldn't even find the switch.