You can fool yourself, you know. You'd think it's impossible, but it turns out it's the easiest thing of all.

When I was little I bragged about my firefighting father: my father would go to heaven, because if he went to hell he would put out all the fires.

Do you know how there are moments when the world moves so slowly you can feel your bones shifting, your mind tumbling? When you think that no matter what happens to you for the rest of your life, you will remember every last detail of that one minute forever?

I will say overwhelmingly what means so much more to me than the opinion of one reviewer are the letters I get from fans who tell me how a particular book has changed their life.

love doesn't follow the rules... nothing is worth having so much as something unattainable.

When you don't know where you're headed, you find places no one else would ever explore.

When I think about writers who use fiction as social commentary and to raise social awareness but who are also very popular, I think of Dickens.