“I should like to write about what happens when fictive people encounter and are embellished by real people.”

“Real people had real agendas, real demands, real expectations about how other people should behave.”

“I don't think that type should be expressive at all. I can write the word 'dog' with any typeface and it doesn't have to look like a dog. But there are people that [think that] when they write 'dog' it should bark.”

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

“I know we built our career almost on being a positive influence on people. But the truth is, that's not always the way I feel. And I'm tired of being afraid of what people are going to think if I don't write that way. I want to write about what's really happening in the world. And in me.”

“Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins.”