It is amazing to me, now, how such wild imaginings and philosophies - inspired by a night charged with frights and calamities - made such perfectly good sense to Owen Meany and me, but good friends are nothing to each other if they are not supportive.

There's no reason you should write any novel quickly.

In increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us -- not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss.

When I was still in prep school - 14, 15 - I started keeping notebooks, journals. I started writing, almost like landscape drawing or life drawing. I never kept a diary, I never wrote about my day and what happened to me, but I described things.

A part of adolescence is feelimg that there's no one else around who's enough like youself to understand you.

It's because even a good man can't always be right, that we need ... rules.

I believe in rules of behavior, and I'm quite interested in stories about the consequences of breaking those rules.