When things don't go well, it helps to think of yourself as a genius and the rest of the world as a bunch of idiots.

I'm used to adapting my novels for feature film - it can be challenging to cut and compress three or four hundred pages into two hours of dramatic action.

Meg was going to have to learn for herself what Laurie had figured out over the summer - that it was better to leave well enough alone, to avoid unnecessary encounters with the people you'd left behind, to not keep poking at that sore tooth with the tip of your tongue. Not because you didn't love them anymore, but because you did, and because that love was useless now, just another dull ache in your phantom limb.

From a distance, it makes perfect sense that the people and the things you think will save you are the very ones that have the power to disappoint you most bitterly, but up close it can hit you as a bewildering surprise.

I used to describe myself as a comic novelist, but my concerns seem to have darkened over the past few years.

When things don't go well, it helps to think of yourself as a genius and the rest of the world as a bunch of idiots.

I have actual dreams of Bruce Springsteen calling me up on stage to wear a bandanna and play rhythm guitar next to Little Steven.