I can't tell you the number of times I've been in the middle of a perfunctory conversation, and someone will say, 'Tell us what you really think.' Or 'Maybe you should switch to decaf.

This is why you must love life: one day you're offering up your social security number to the Russian Mafia; two weeks later you're using the word calve as a verb.

I'll see something awful on the street and I'll come home and say to my boyfriend, "I just saw the funniest thing on the street." It's a stance. It's the way I was born, or the way I was damaged.

I want find a part of myself that I feel shame about, or that I feel really scared of exposing to the world.

I keep an elaborate calendar for my characters detailing on which dates everything happens. Im constantly revising this as I go along. It gives me the freedom to intricately plot my story, knowing it will at least hold up on a timeline.

I think one of the good things about writing novels is that you always start from scratch.

The first stop on this crazy train is Kindergarten Junction, and nobody gets off until it pulls into Harvard Station.