No one knows what cuases an outer landscape to become an inner one.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

You shouldn't do that," said Laura. "You could set yourself on fire.

There's nothing like a shovel full of dirt to encourage literacy.

When things are really dismal, you can laugh, or you can cave in completely.

I don't want to see anyone. I lie in the bedroom with the curtains drawn and nothingness washing over me like a sluggish wave. Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead.

His father was self-made, but his mother was constructed by others, and such edifices are notoriously fragile.