Until you can become accountable to yourself and only yourself, you're probably not going to live a fully vital life. So much of literature is about accountability. The moral issues in most novels are about people becoming responsible for their own behaviour. One of the forces against being responsible for your own behaviour is the force of the past, in the way that the past tries to form you.

She was an artist. She held opposites in her mind.

I'm kind of a distractible guy.

I started reading literature at 17 or 18, and I felt this extra beat to life.

If you lose all hope, you can always find it again.

Find what causes a commotion in your heart. Find a way to write about that

I think once you love somebody, you love somebody; that's just how it is.