Cynicism makes you feel smart, I know it, even when you aren't smart.

I don't want to be taken to Bhutan and smell the flowers. I want to be told something I couldn't have been told any other way.

Only sometimes you can't feel anything about a subject without hypothesizing its extinction.

When you are sixteen you do not know what your parents know, or much of what they understand, and less of what's in their hearts. This can save you from becoming an adult too early, save your life from becoming only theirs lived over again--which is a loss. But to shield yourself--as I didn't do--seems to be an even greater error, since what's lost is the truth of your parents' life and what you should think about it, and beyond that, how you should estimate the world you are about to live in.

Maturity, as I conceived it, was recognizing what was bad or peculiar in life, admitting it has to stay that way, and going ahead with the best of things.

I went to college to study hospitality. I quickly got out of that and realized that what I liked to do was write.

I want saner gun laws. I think all these automatic weapons should be banned, big clips and handguns should be banned. As far as I'm concerned, shotguns and hunting weapons are all that we should allow in America.