My boyfriend suggested I write two pages a day. He wouldn't take me out if I hadn't done my two pages. That's how I wrote my second novel.

I learned that if you want to get somewhere, you just make up your mind and work like hell til you get there.

I wish I was a kid again, when I had all the answers.

Your mother is not crazy. Neither, contrary to popular belief, is your brother. He is merely miscast in a play. He would have made the perfect knight in a different century, or a very good pagan prince in a time of heroes. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river, with the ability to do anything and finding nothing he wants to do.

My mother was physically and emotionally abusive. My father was an extremely cold man.

I am a greaser. I am a JD and a hood. I blacken the name of our fair city. I beat up people. I rob gas stations. I am a menace to society. Man do I have fun!

But Dally, heaters kill people! Ya' kill 'em with switchblades to, don'tcha?