So often we try to make other people feel better by minimizing their pain, by telling them that it will get better (which it will) or that there are worse things in the world (which there are). But that's not what I actually needed. What I actually needed was for someone to tell me that it hurt because it mattered. I have found this very useful to think about over the years, and I find that it is a lot easier and more bearable to be sad when you aren't constantly berating yourself for being sad.

I may die young, but at least I'll die smart.

And okay, fair enough, but there is this unwritten contract between author and reader and I think not ending your book kind of violates that contract.

As a reader, I don't feel a story has an obligation to make me happy. I want stories to show me a bigger world than the one I know.

It always shocked me when I realized that I wasn’t the only person in the world who thought and felt such strange and awful things.

Every time I try to set something in Chicago, I get intimidated by 'Augie March.' It's easy to set something in Indianapolis - we don't have 'Augie March' here. But I love writing about Chicago, and I love being there and imagining lives in Chicago. I hope to set something there in the future, but it's intimidating.

Life has become the future. Every moment of your life is lived for the future.