The rule for finding plots for character-centered novels, which is to ask: 'So what's the worst possible thing I can do to *this* guy?' And then do it.

Forward momentum only worked as a strategy if one had correctly identified which way was forward.

My home is not a place, it is people.

Ignorance is not stupidity, but it might as well be. And I do not like feeling stupid.

Experience suggests it doesn't matter so much how you got here, as what you do after you arrive.

Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that and walk away. But that's hard

Adversity does teach who your real friends are.