When I was a kid... I needed to belong.

I usually learn more from the situations I hate than the ones I love.

I like to be surprised. The best writing is when it defies me, when it starts going a different way than I had planned.

With destruction comes renovation.

My soul was a burden, bruised and bleeding. It was tired of the man who carried it, but I found no place to set it down to rest. Neither the charm of the countryside nor the sweet scents of a garden could soothe it. It found no peace in song or laughter, none in the company of friends at table or in the pleasures of love, none even in books or poetry.... Where could my heart find refuge from itself? Where could I go, yet leave myself behind?

But what are our stories if not the mirrors we hold up to our fears?

Look, don't just stare at the pages," I used to tell my students. "Become the characters. Live inside the book.