If a novel was a map of a country, a story was the bright silver pin that marked the crossroads.

We shared ideas like sweaters, with easy exchange and lack of ownership.

...I came to see that there was something liberating about failure and humiliation. Life as I had known it had been destroyed so completely, so publicly, that in a way I was free, as I imagine anyone who walks away from a crash is free. I didn't have expectations anymore, and no one seemed to expect anything from me. I believed that nothing short of a speeding car could kill me. I knew there was nothing I couldn't give up.

I wrote the last sentence of The Patron Saint of Liars in early April and stumbled out of my apartment and into the beautiful spring feeling panicked and amazed. There is no single experience in my life as a writer to match that moment, the blue of the sky and the breeze drifting in from the bay. I had done the thing I had always wanted to do: I had written a book, all the way to the end. Even if it proved to be terrible, it was mine.

Write because you love the art and the discipline, not because you're looking to sell something.

Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.

I made a startling discovery. Time spent writing = output of work. Amazing.

If you want to write and can't figure out how to do it, try this: Pick an amount of time to sit at your desk every day. Start with twenty minutes, say, and work up as quickly as possible to as much time as you can spare. Do you really want to write? Sit for two hours a day.

That's the way I work. I get it all plotted in my mind, and then I write it down.