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People in life take on certain stories and say, 'I'm going to be defined by this story and I'm going to live up to every inch of this story.' Sometimes you realize the story isn't fulfilling you and in fact you're not living the life that you're given.

As a child, I thought, 'Once I am a grown-up, there will be no more fear, no more worries,' and it turns out that's not true.

We make the oldest stories new when we succeed, and we are trapped by the old stories when we fail.

One thing about being successful is that I stopped being afraid of dying. Once you're a star you're dead already. You're embalmed.

In my memoir, I admit that I've been as fearful of success as of failure. In fact, when 'Passages' was published, I so dreaded bad reviews that I ran away to Italy with a girlfriend and our children to hide out.

Sometimes if you tell me what a story is about in just a few sentences, I can tell you if it's going to be a success.

I had a job, I got ill, I left the job to get better, and while I was getting better, I wrote some stories. I sent them to some publishers and the fifth one who replied said they'd take them. Then they went bankrupt. Then that bankrupt publisher got bought by a bigger firm. Story: in the end is the beginning, and in the beginning is the end.

The reality of the writer's world is that you set yourself up for disappointment with every success that you deliver because with every success you raise your readers' expectations.

My grandmother had a great saying. It always stuck with me: 'People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.' They've got to see it and feel it. And it's for real. And that's all. Be who you are.

It's hard for me to just say, 'Wow, this is amazing - I'm famous. I'm living the dream.' I sit there and think, 'I'm scared - this can go away tomorrow.' My dad always says that I'm a tortured soul because I'm never pleased; I never feel like I deserve what I've achieved.