“Any artist must simultaneously be nigh cripplingly insecure and massively egotistical.”

“Five of the most exciting words in the English language: "What shall I read next?”

“table tennis in the afternoon...”

“She had been his talisman, his cure for the insecurities and worries that he knew deep down didn't really matter, but somehow had always managed to get the best of him.”

“I must confess a shameful secret: I love Chicago best in the cold.”

“My favorite “trick” is to stop writing at a point where I know that I can pick up easily the next day. I’ll stop in mid-paragraph, often in midsentence. It makes getting out of bed so much easier, because I know that all I’ll have to do to be productive is complete the sentence. And by then I’ll be seated at my desk, coffee and Oreo cookie at hand, the morning’s inertia overcome. There’s an added advantage: The human brain hates incomplete sentences. All night my mind will have secretly worked on the passage and likely mapped out the remainder of the page, even the chapter, while simultaneously sending me on a dinner date with Cate Blanchett.”

“No system which implies control by privilege seekers has ever ended in any other way than collapse.”