Photo by Carolyn Kraft

If it’s the end of April it can only mean a few things. One, that my wooden leg will start to yearn for the boreal forests of Norway and I will spend hours on the phone negotiating the fake limb rate with Virgin Atlantic, and two, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Held this past weekend on the luxurious USC campus, the LATFOB was once again a shining mecca for writers and readers, and, this year, the grounds for a clever-creepy marketing campaign for Hulu’s adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood.

I was in attendance on both Saturday and Sunday, and heard many an inspiring word. Here are some of those words:

“Writing is like breathing to me; if I don’t write, I’ll die.”

“A really good novel is like a burlesque show.”

[Regarding “unlikable” characters in YA fiction] “I remember when I was a teenager, my thoughts were pretty evil; I just didn’t say everything.”

[Regarding a writer’s process] “Instead of ‘pantser’ or ‘plotter,’ I like to think of it as are you a gardener or are you an architect?”

“The daily mind is lazy relative to the reader mind.”

“Language can be twisted to tolerate lies.”

“My experiences as a teenager were kind of dull, but my emotions were epic.”

“Chipotle asked me, do you have something that we can put on a bag for a shit-ton of money?”

“When it comes to my characters, I am a horrible person.”

Photo by Carolyn Kraft

“The highest truth is a series of contradictions.”

“That first email to Erwin, that was confrontational.”  “No, it wasn’t.”  “Yes, it was.”  “No.”  “Yes, it was like ‘I’m here, looking for a fight.'”  “No way.” “Do you want me to read it back to you?”

“You don’t write for ‘children’ you write for one child, or for the child you used to be.”

“When you’re writing a story and you get stuck, embrace it. It’s just the story telling you, ‘You’re not listening to me.’ ”

“People spend more money on yoga than on books.”  “Maybe we could change that if we can convince people to read in hot rooms.”

“I used to have this condition when I was younger called Hemingway boner.”

“I don’t know if I’m gifted, but I do know how to work hard. I have discipline.”

“We’re able to entertain several different versions of the truth simultaneously.”

“I will defend trashy YA to my death.”

“First drafts are like I’m just shoveling sand into a sandbox; later on, I’ll build sand castles.”

WHO SAID THIS STUFF (in order): Benjamin Alire Saenz; Aaron Hartzler; Maggie Thrash; Ellen Hopkins; George Saunders; Saunders; Julie Berry; Saunders; Frances Hardinge; Saunders; strangers overheard before the start of a panel discussion; Melissa de la Cruz; Saunders; Lisa Lucas and Oscar Villalon; Saunders; Saenz; Saunders; Thrash; Shannon Hale