“Don't be afraid to be human - you're human, you're going to have emotional days. You're going to have days when things suck and then some days when things are great, but don't feel guilty because you're experiencing that. Don't feel guilty from being human.”

“You can't go on like you're going to start really living one day like all this is some preamble to some great life thats magically going to appear. I'm a firm believer that you have to create your own miracles, don't hold out that there's something better waiting on the other side. It doesn't work that way. When you're gone, you're gone. Don't wait.”

“Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.”

“This is a little dirty secret of mental health economics: if you're depressed, you don't think you're worth the cost of treatment. You feel guilty enough about being unproductive and unreliable.”

“Then you have a big problem, because a human is a thinking animal. If you don't think, you're not really a human.”

“Running a close second [as a writing lesson] was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it's hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.”