If you get the you-are-a-genius label, it can limit you. Because I'm not so scrutinized, I have more freedom. And that let's me write what I want.

I don't trust happiness. I turn it over as if it were a glass at a flea market or a rug at a souk, looking for chipped rims or loose threads.

I decided.. that I could go on being scared forever, that I could keep walking, that I could carry my rage around, hot and heavy in my chest forever. But maybe there was another way. You have everything you need, my mother had told me. And maybe all I needed was the courage to admit that what I needed was someone to lean on.

My book sales make 'real writers' possible.

Back in the day, when I was starting out, I'd get five or 10 emails and I'd respond to every one. But after my third or fourth book it got too time-consuming.

Things happen, and you can't make them unhappen. You don't get do-overs, you can't roll back the clock, and the only thing you can change, and the only thing it does any good to worry about, is how you let them affect you.

I think I'm much more comfortable talking about other books than my own!