Maybe that's why people take pictures of themselves, to avoid being described.

Somewhat predictably, I'm much more comfortable in front of an audience - and a big audience is even better - than faced with one stranger. This always seems like a bit of a failing on my part, as a human. I think that's also why I put myself situations where I'm forced to engage in other ways.

Sometimes I lie in bed trying to decide which of my friends I truly care about, and I always come to the same conclusion: none of them. I thought these were just my starter friends and the real ones would come along later. But no. These are my real friends.

I'm interested in what the virtues of all those things are, especially for the kind of person who's made their own world that revolves around them, like writers do. It seems especially precious.

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.

Nothing really mattered, and nothing could be lost.

It was a small thing, but it was a thing, and things have a way of either dying or growing, and it wasn’t dying.