Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.

Pain. I seem to have an affection, a kind of sweettooth for it. Bolts of lightning, little rivulets of thunder. And I the eye of the storm.

Isolation, you know, carries the seeds of its own destruction because as times change, other things seep in.

It was my father who could do no wrong. So I didn't think of it as, oh, look, my father's a violent man.

At some point in life, the world's beauty becomes enough.

Sometimes what I write on the page frightens me, so I feel free when I write, but I don't feel safe.

I think being an editor really helped me take other people's notes on my writing. I'd get a note like 'It's too wet' or 'The first couple chapters are good, but then the rest of the pages were so wet that they were completely illegible' or 'Did you dip this in Sprite? This smells like Sprite. Why would you dip your novel in Sprite?' And instead of pushing back, I'd listen. That's an incredibly important skill for a young writer to have.