“If the voices in your head make you cry, you're a lunatic. Put their words on paper, and you're a writer.”

“I'm an amateur at life. I'll let you know when I go pro. ”

“Karma changes people. People can change the world.”

“I don't think you can reach your potential as a writer unless you're a passionate reader, AND read passionately.”

“I almost cried. But I didn't, because if you're in seventh grade and you cry while wearing a blue floral cape and yellow tights with white feathers on the butt, you just have to curl up and die somewhere in a dark alley.”

“The point of freewriting is to get past the voice inside your head that tells you your ideas aren't good enough, your words aren't good enough, you're no writer and so forth.”

“Think of the sound you make when you let go after holding your breath for a very, very long time. Think of the gladdest sound you know: the sound of dawn on the first day of spring break, the sound of a bottle of Coke opening, the sound of a crowd cheering in your ears because you're coming down to the last part of a race--and you're ahead. Think of the sound of water over stones in a cold stream, and the sound of wind through green trees on a late May afternoon in Central Park. Think of the sound of a bus coming into the station carrying someone you love. Then put all those together.”