Rule number one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.

Loneliness is not being alone, It's loving others to no avail.

By morning she was dead. She had not died of starvation or committed suicide by any conventional means. She had simply willed herself to die, and being a strong-willed woman, she had succeeded. She had missed dying on her birthday by two days.

The megaselling books by celebrities are not so much books as products.

Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.

Nothing can be said, including this statement, that has not been said before.

Keep a diary, but don't just list all the things you did during the day. Pick one incident and write it up as a brief vignette. Give it color, include quotes and dialogue, shape it like a story with a beginning, middle and end—as if it were a short story or an episode in a novel. It's great practice. Do this while figuring out what you want to write a book about. The book may even emerge from within this running diary.