"Isn't there some truth in all fiction?" "There's some fiction in all truth too."

"Are there any leading men in your life?""Several, but they're all fictional."

"I realized that my life of late had consisted of far too much dialogue and not enough exposition. I imagined an angry, bespectacled English teacher slashing his pen through the transcript of my life, wondering how someone could possibly say so much and think so little."

"My father used to say that all protagonists were versions of the author who wrote them—even if it meant the author had to acknowledge a side of himself that he did not know existed. It just required courage."