“Being a junkie, when you broke it down, was nothing more than a crazed day job.”

“There is nothing more beautiful than seeing a person being themselves. Imagine going through your day being unapologetically you.”

“Really, being a librarian is a much more dangerous job than you realize.”

“Being a fiction writer is really like being an actor, because if you're going to write convincingly it has to sound right and play right. The only way that works is to emotionally and technically act out and see the scene you're in.There's no better job in the world, because when I sit down at that computer I'm the world's best forensics expert, if that's what I'm writing about that day. Or I'm some crazed psycho running down a dark alley.Or I'm a gorgeous woman looking to find a man that night. Whatever! But I'm all of those things, every day. How can you beat that?”

“Two babies in little more than a year and a half. Knockout Jimmy was forced to give up boxing and take a job in the paper mill. It broke him, and in turn, he broke us all.”

“Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.”