Jerome was sliding and climbing on top of me and it felt like it had the night before, like a crushing weight. So do boys and men announce their intentions. They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.

Basically you come up with the fictional idea and you start writing that story, but then in order to write it and to make it seem real, you sometimes put your own memories in. Even if it's a character that's very different from you.

I live my own life and nurse my own wounds. It's not the best way to live. But it's the way I am.

There are some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things.

If Mitchell was ever going to become a good Christian, he would have to stop disliking people so intensely.

I'm hopefully making the reader feel a lot about the characters and then about their own life.

Though at this moment she felt abused, abandoned, and ashamed of herself, Madeleine knew that she was still young, that she had her whole life ahead of her--a life in which, if she persevered, she might do something special--and that part of persevering meant getting past moments just like this one, when people made you feel small, unlovable, and took away your confidence.