When you read a piece of writing that you admire, send a note of thanks to the author.

Books and beer are the best and worst defense.

In a sense, you're always mythologizing your life; it's always an effort to make yourself epic. At least in fiction you can lie and sort of justify your delusion about your "epicness." But when you're writing a memoir, you're trying to make your life epic and it's not - nobody's life is.

Do you understand how amazing it is to hear that from an adult? Do you know how amazing it is to hear that from anybody? It's one of the simplest sentences in the world, just four words, but they're the four hugest words in the world when they're put together. You can do it.

If you're good at it, and you love it, and it helps you navigate the river of the world, then it can't be wrong.

He made me realize that hard work--that the act of finishing, of completing, of accomplishing a task--is joyous

I think that white women are more apt to read laterally. So I think there's some strong identification for women, and their political and social positions, and minorities. I think that the political power of, let's say, the average Indian man and a white woman are pretty equal.