To get where you want to go you can't only do what you like.

Innocence is the currency. Survival is bought with innocence. You are born with an abundance of innocence and no knowledge of how to survive: you spend your life trading one for the other. But it only works one way. You can’t buy back your innocence.

They say life is all about connecting, like that’s a good thing. But when brain and eyes are lining up you know different.

Mom had the kind of love for her that you could feel, like it was part of the atmosphere.

You don’t have to be a good person to be a good writer – history shows it’s better if you’re not – but you have to understand your badness.

To get where you want to go, you can’t only do what you like.

To live with the conscious knowledge of the shadow of uncertainty, with the knowledge that disaster or tragedy could strike at any time; to be afraid and to know and acknowledge your fear, and still to live creatively and with unstinting love: that is to live with grace.

They say life is all about connecting, like that's a good thing. But when brain and eyes are lining up you know different.

You don't have to be a good person to be a good writer--history shows it's better if you're not--but you have to understand your badness.

To get from people you had to give a piece of yourself, a real piece that mattered. Just being nice was not enough.