I remember in junior high school, which is what we called it, suddenly I was looking at myself, almost through other people's eyes, and thought: how does the world see me? So that was one of the things I was really interested in, when I was writing Goodbye Stranger.

Life is really just a bunch of nows, one after the other.

I don't know. I just feel stuck, like I'm afraid to take any steps, in case they're the wrong ones.

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean.

Einstein says common sense is just habit of thought. It's how we're used to thinking about things, but a lot of the time it just gets in the way.

I feel lucky that I read so many books as a kid because I know that no matter how much I appreciate a book now, and I can love a book very much, it's never going to be that childhood passion for a book. There's some element, something special about the way they're reading books and experiencing books that's finite.

I think if you can take something out and it doesn't change the book, it doesn't need to be there.