I've gone to readings to see authors after meeting them on Twitter. And while there, I've found myself sitting next to still more writers who I met on Twitter, too.
Gone are the days when a publisher could take out an ad, count on a few reviews, and have an author do a couple of signings. Nowadays, readers want to feel a connection with an author.
When I first came to New York, I would scream like a girl and run to the other side of the street if there was a pigeon. Now I can face off with a pigeon.
It was an earthshattering kiss, one that stole breaths, stopped hearts, and scared the shit out of me because it surfaced feelings I’d never felt before, ones that rendered me helpless.
When are we going to say cancer is cured? I'm not sure when that will happen, if that will happen because cancer is a very slippery disease and it involves a vast number of cells in the body and those cells are continually mutating.
Like an old gold-panning prospector, you must resign yourself to digging up a lot of sand from which you will later patiently wash out a few minute particles of gold ore.
A novel requires a certain kind of world-building and also a certain kind of closure, ultimately. Whereas with a short story you have this sense that there are hinges that the reader doesn't see.
God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours.
If a liberal political philosophy stands for anything, and I am no longer sure it does, then it must mean that we are committed to the leveling of the playing field for everyone.
My upbringing was middle-class but my parents' families were both working-class so I had this odd combination of working-class background but in a privileged position.
The Rwandan policy of putting the genocide behind them is incredibly effective in many ways. But it's also incredibly frightening to think that this nation is being asked put this mass slaughter behind them.
Whether you approach your dreams on soft feet or in a breathless run, just so long as you acknowledge that your dreams are valuable and worthy of pursuing, then you’ve made it.
Feel no guilt. Getting married and giving birth does not mean that you have sold your life away to perfectly healthy people who can get their own damn socks.
More than periods where I don't write anything, I have periods where I just write junk and I know I'm writing junk but I can't stop.
I personally feel I still have so much to learn as a writer; each novel is better than the one before, just because I'm getting better at it.
The don't-ask-don't-tell approach to plot and character that 'The Hurt Locker' relies on to set itself in motion doesn't offend me politically. It offends me as a storyteller.
There is a neurologist, a woman over at Harvard who wanted me to come talk to them, and in France I have a lot of readers in the sciences. I can't tell you why.
Trying to teach creativity is the major hoax of our time along with the Iraq war and plastic surgery" ~ Snarky comment of Clive from "The River Swimmer" (pg 47)
When I found the book was condemned as soon as the book was printed, or rather as soon as it was set up ready to print, I held it in plates for a year nearly, waiting to see what would come out of all this discussion.
Now when I came to go up to operations, I went down to this patient's room and got down on my knees at the foot of the bed and earnestly asked the Lord to help us and to help me.
Into this pour the purified juice: and put it into a pan of water come almost to a boil and continue nearly in the state of boiling until the juice is found to be the consistency of a thick syrup when cold. It is then when cold, to be corked up in a ...
