“And I don't wanna hear you tell yourself That these feelings are in the past You know it doesn't mean they're off the shelf Because pain's built to last Everybody sails alone But we can travel side by side Even if you fail You know that no one really minds”

“Every once in awhile, have a really good argument with yourself. I mean really get pissed off. Take both sides. Then look in the mirror, and in the middle of the argument say, “You know, you’re a pain in my butt. I’m not arguing with you. Get lost.”

“There are some situations one simply cannot be neutral about, because when you are neutral you are an accomplice. Objectivity doesn't mean treating all sides equally. It means giving each side a hearing.”

“You know there's a different side of yourself you don't want to recognize, a side you don't want to see in the daylight. You spend your whole life doing everything to push it down and away, out of sight, out of mind. You pretend that a piece of yourself doesn't exist. You live like that for a long time. For a long time, you're safe. And then you're not.”

“They're sort of ancillary anyway, friends. I mean, they're important -- everybody knows that; the TV tells you so -- but they come and go. You lose one friend, you pick up another.”

“You're smiling. But you must know yourself, since you are a literary person, that the work of fiction is always a form of recovery of the past, even if that past has to be falsified to seem real. The act of recalling the past in what we write doesn't mean knowing the way it really was, but rather becoming the master of memories as they burn in the perilous instant of creation.”