“In a sense who you are has always been a story that you told to yourself. Now your self is a story that you tell to others.”

“We all have our own stories. The story you tell about yourself, even if you only tell it to yourself, drives your actions and has a significant impact on your focus.”

“Thus I rediscovered what writers have always known (and have told us again and again): books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told.”

“Tell your story. Don't try and tell the stories that other people can tell. Any starting writer starts out with other people's voices. But as quickly as you can start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there will always be better writers than you and there will always be smarter writers than you, but you are the only you.”

“You are a confabulatory creature by nature. You are always explaining to yourself the motivations for your actions and the causes to the effects in your life, and you make them up without realizing it when you don't know the answers. Over time, these explanations become your idea of who you are and your place in the world. They are your self... You are a story you tell yourself.”

“Just tell yourself a story that'll satisfy you and pretend he told it.”