... suddenly I was a kid in the hall standing outside my locker about to head to Math. But that was how it went sometimes, the English language, when you really needed it, crumbled to clay in your mouth. That's when all the real things were said.

... suddenly I was a kid in the hall standing outside my locker about to head to Math. But that was how it went sometimes, the English language, when you really needed it, crumbled to clay in your mouth. That's when all the real things were said.

When I'm creating characters, I definitely think of theme songs. Writing for me is very visual, so I sometimes think of it in terms of a movie with a soundtrack, and try to transfer that to words.

He said you couldn't pretend the terrible things in life didn't happen. You can't clean it up. You keep all the refuse and the scars. It's how you learn. And try to make improvements.

It’s easy to be yourself in the dark.

Always live your life with your biography in mind," Dad was fond of saying. "Naturally, it won't be published unless you have a Magnificent Reason, but at the very least you will be living grandly.

Most people ended up, after only a couple of months, so far away from where they'd intended to go, stuck in some barbed underbrush of a quagmire when they'd meant to head straight to the ocean.