I cried in English, I cried in french, I cried in all the languages, because tears are the same all around the world.

For a split second I felt as though she was nobody special in the larger scheme of my life. She was just some girl who had tied me to her leg to help her sink when she jumped off the bridge. Then I blinked and was in love with her again.

Narrative and characters have always interested me. I never tried to alienate an audience. Of course, gradually, I wanted a bigger and bigger space to draw people in, so it's very organic [growth].

I like embracing kind of normal forms but am always trying to approach them as if no one's ever done that before. As if I'm literally the first person to ever write a book.

We humans are here because nothing can be perfect. There always have to be some living things that are unsatisfied, itchy, trying too hard. If it was all just animals and rocks and lettuce, the gods wouldn't feel like they had enough to do.

People tend to hold on to their first impressions - that's why those first descriptions can be so important. You don't even necessarily look at people that carefully after a while; you just hold on to that early impression.

When she saw my messy desk, she said she was the same way, and there was no dust on the TV, and I was easy to love. People just need a little help because they are so used to not loving. It's like scoring the clay to make another piece of clay stick to it.