We don't really believe in mowing the lawn; we do it only to avoid unnecessary engagement with the neighbors.

A more normal, mature way to think about it [my work] would be, Oh, I work on multiple projects at once and they overlap, but the actual psychology of it is a lot more self-abusing.

I eat an egg every morning, and when I'm done, I almost always have the thought: There. Now even if I'm captured and starved, I'll be able to live off the protein of that egg for a while.

I had a joint once and I didn't feel right for a whole year

The idea that you might end up in a job that doesn't allow you to be who you are, over the course of a lifetime, is still one of the most chilling nightmares to me. It's a good metaphor for fears I have about losing my soul in some accidental, mundane way. So, to me, these jobs that my characters have are very loaded. They immediately suggest a complex character to me, a woman who is, say, a secretary, but also a vigilante on behalf of her own soul.

I steeled myself against laughter; I would rather die than laugh. I didn’t laugh, I did not laugh. But I died, I did die.

I think titles are tricky because they're like a really short ad for the book. And like an ad, they should open the door in a way that might be more accessible than the book itself. So I always like titles to be familiar. I'm not trying to break ground with the title itself. The title should feel like something already celebrated.