“Someone is always going to try to knock you down and take your place. It is up to you to fight for what you want.”

“Never outgrow your imagination.”

“The moment you put someone on a pedestal they will look down upon you. The trick is respecting each other equally.”

“Never let the opinion of another affect your opinion of yourself.”

“If you don't believe in yourself, why should anyone else?”

“There is no greater feeling of accomplishment than to create a world that solely exists in your imagination and be able to pull someone into this hidden place inside of my thoughts. To make someone...”

“But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are ...”

“You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are.”

“A novel must show how the world truly is, how characters genuinely think, how events actually occur. A novel should somehow reveal the true source of our actions.”

“Romance is the deepest thing in life. It is deeper than reality.”

“when you're a kid, they tell you that it's what's on the inside that counts. Looks don't matter . But that's not true. Guys like Phoebus in The Hunchback, or Dorian, or the old Kyle Kingsbury-- the...”

“Every concept of reality is all in our head, belief is what makes truth.”

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”