We have this habit of romanticizing the lives of writers. I remember when I was a kid, I was like, 'I want to be Kurt Vonnegut.'

Ergo: girls should always make the first move, because (a) they are, on the whole, less likely to be rejected than guys, (b) that way, girls will never get kissed unless they want to be kissed.

Different authors write different ways, have different relationships with their audiences, and those are all legitimate.

I wasn't disappointed. My expectations had been met.

All representations of a thing are inherently abstract.

We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either.

It hurt, and that is not a euphemism. It hurt like a beating.