“My ambition was to live like music.”

“Writing is.... being able to take something whole and fiercely alive that exists inside you in some unknowable combination of thought, feeling, physicality, and spirit, and to then store it like a ...”

“If the wrong reader comes across the words, they will remain just words. But for the right readers, your vision blooms off the page and is absorbed into their minds like smoke, where it will re-for...”

“The appeal of perfume is that it is at once ephemeral and empowering. It creates a shimmering invisible armor that lingers in a room long after its wearer has gone and infuses our imagination with ...”

“Something like riding a horse - which I've recently started doing - requires courage, especially for me, as I started out being actually scared of horses.”

“A sad person who is so involved with his sadness that he mistakes it for reality will have a hard time seeing himself as anything but sad. For him, the sadness is not a feeling that he experiences ...”

“I don't like work--no man does--but I like what is in the work--the chance to find yourself. Your own reality--for yourself not for others--what no other man can ever know. They can only see the me...”

“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”

“Earning happiness means doing good and working, not speculating and being lazy. Laziness may look inviting, but only work gives you true satisfaction.”

“Saturday night is perfect for writers because other people have "plans.”

“Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.”

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”

“She asked if I loved another woman, so I answered honestly and said, Dinner was great, but I could go for dessert.”

“My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.”

“Poppy: What makes you think I'm having dinner with you?Jake: Because you can't sit in your room and eat ice cream and chips two nights in a row. You'll get scurvy. You need vitamin C.”