Why do we smile? Why do we laugh? Why do we feel alone? Why are we sad and confused? Why do we read poetry? Why do we cry when we see a painting? Why is there a riot in the heart when we love? Why do we feel shame? What is that thing in the pit of your stomach called desire?

I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn't get--and never would get.

Mostly, I think people are fake. Well, what do you expect? The fake world we live in conspires to make us all fakes.

Young men and women come of age when they look at their parents and see them not only as their parents but as people. They gain a lot of compassion, and it's easier to accept their flaws.

But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.

I didn't think it was my job to accept what everyone said I was and who I should be.

I think writing books is a way for me to work out certain issues. I write about what matters to me, always.

The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.

I wondered what that was like, to hold someone’s hand. I bet you could sometimes find all of the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand.

It's a complex thing when you're writing a novel, because so much of it is conscious and planned and deliberate, and so much of it is not, and it has to be a dance between the conscious and the unconscious. I bring my best instincts to my work. For instance - and I come by this naturally, or I think I do - I am a very good judge of character.

I do that with all of my characters. They have one of the flaws I have, and I zero in on that flaw.

If you want to be a writer, you don't want to live in a comfortable place.

I wondered about the science of storms and how sometimes it seemed that a storm wanted to break the world and how the world refused to break.

If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.

The heart can get really cold if all you've known is winter.