The current total of countries in the world with First Amendments is one. You have guaranteed freedom of speech. Other countries don't have that.

Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.

There are lots of artists in the world. But there's only one you. And the only person who has your point of view is you. If you decide not to make things, all you've done is deprive the world of all the stuff that only you could have brought to it.

You need more than a beginning if you're going to start a book. If all you have is a beginning, then once you've written that beginning, you have nowhere to go.

I like reading. I prefer not reading on my computer, because that makes whatever I am reading feel like work. I do not mind reading on my iPad.

It felt like a small forever.

And did I pass?" The face of the old woman on my right was unreadable in the gathering dusk. On my left the younger woman said, "You don't pass or fail at being a person, dear.