When I finish a first draft, it's always just as much of a mess as it's always been. I still make the same mistakes every time.

Drunk, Jane spoke as though she were Nancy Drew. I was a fool for a girl with a dainty lexicon.

Art is a form of exploration, of sailing off into the unknown alone, heading for those unmarked places on the map. If children are not permitted-not taught-to be adventurers and explorers as children, what will become of the world of adventure, of stories, of literature itself?

[While writing], I'll go anywhere I find that is quiet, has no internet. I have a big internet problem.

The truth of some promises is not as important as whether or not you can believe in them, with all your heart.

... But he believed that every great love was in some measure a terrible mistake.

You need three things to become a successful novelist: talent, luck and discipline. Discipline is the one element of those three things that you can control, and so that is the one that you have to focus on controlling, and you just have to hope and trust in the other two.