The best characters are the ones who stay with you long after the book is closed.

The only obsession everyone wants: 'love.' People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole, and then you're cracked open.

I don't want to paint people who are just sitting there like models. I want to paint the actual person.

"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions."