“If you're going to mash two ideas, they need to fit some way. And preferable cause as much tension as harmony.”

“Just as all writers were beginners once, so were all novels. They all went through rough stages, even the ones by our most hallowed masters.”

“You need to be buried deep in the dirt before you can find your bloom.”

“Comedians and artists are some of the loneliest, self-destructive people on the planet. If you enjoy what they produce, take the time to appreciate the humiliation and vulnerability that made them.”

“Lucky Luke: I wonder how you manage to read with everything that's going on.Jolly Jumper: By turning the pages just like everyone else.”

“The truth: after just one novel, I had lost touch with my muse. The quietly desperate, jaded girl in my head had stopped slinging sardonic wit into my psyche.”

“Four AM last call proved to me that the late-night hours had a mystical, ethereal quality ripe with dangerous possibilities.”