"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself."
"The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter."
"If you only write when inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you'll never be a novelist."
"But the truth is, it's not the idea, it's never the idea, it's always what you do with it."(Online journal entry for January 31, 2009)"
"Rule number one: Don't fuck with librarians."
"Read. Read anything. Read the things they say are good for you, and the things they claim are junk. You'll find what you need to find. Just read."