There are some people out there who don't wait for what come next. They decide what should come next and they go and make it happen.

And even if you didn't fall in love in the eighties, in your mind it will feel like the eighties, all innocent and airbrushed, with bright colors and shoulder pads and Pat Benetar or the Cure on the soundtrack.

We don't stop loving people just because we hate them, but we don't stop hating them either.

When I'm writing novels, even screenplays, it's never an actor I have in mind; it's always the version in my head of who the character is. Once somebody gets cast, I have to adjust a little bit to who they are.

Obviously it's easier when I' m doing the adapting myself. But my feeling is, your potential upside far outweighs the downside. Ultimately, they [moviemakers] can't change your book. Your book remains on the shelf the way you wrote it. If they make a great movie of your book, then you have the equivalent of millions and millions of dollars of advertising for your book. If the movie's not that good, that doesn't mean the book's not good. It doesn't change what you've already written. It has the potential to reach more people.

That's the thing about life; everything feels so permanent, but you can disappear in an instant.

Sometimes it’s heartbreaking to see your siblings as the people they’ve become. Maybe that’s why we all stay away from each other as a matter of course.