I thought a lot about how so many memoirs about fatness focus on weight loss; they don't focus on living with weight in a world that is rather inhospitable to it. So I knew that was the idea that was going to be most interesting and most challenging, and I like to be challenged as a writer.

I write because I love doing it.

Books are often far more than just books.

Somewhere along the line we started misinterpreting the First Amendment and this idea of the freedom of speech the amendment grants us. We are free to speak as we choose without fear of prosecution or persecution, but we are not free to speak as we choose without consequence.

Most of the time, writing is a lot of fun, and not a small amount of self-medication.

I approach most things in life with a dangerous level of confidence to balance my generally low self-esteem.

Intellectually, I know I am worthy, however arbitrary a thing worthiness is, and have always been worthy.