David Rakoff

There's nothing particularly wrong with being more pessimistic than optimistic. Optimism is broad-based, non-detail-oriented thinking; pessimism is detail-oriented thinking.

The rigors of creativity - the self-doubt, the revising, the solitude - do require a kind of self-consumption. It comes at a cost; a cost that isn't for everyone.

Pessimists are born, true, but they also can be made.

My mom is, for 89 years old, is extraordinarily open-minded.

Marriage can be work, it can be difficult, it can be hard, but I think working through those times makes you stronger as a couple and as a unit.

It took me realizing that a broken heart has never actually killed anyone to find the courage to ask for what I want, in just about every situation. That was part of my own growing up.