The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is always a great time, and this past weekend’s event did not disappoint. And how could it, really, with two full days on the beautiful USC campus where books and authors reigned supreme?

If you were there I’d love to hear about your experience. In the meantime, here’s a sampling of what struck me from Day 1’s author panels and, in a few instances, my own casual eavesdropping on some unsuspecting festival-goers:

“The music of the writing has to marry the story being told.”

“It’s a fun challenge to describe something from another art form.”

“Hell yes it’s an antiwar novel!”

“There’s a reason why 19-year olds are crazy. Whipsawed between raging hormones and the most profound existential questions in life.”

“My process is creative floundering. With this kind of work we have to create our own problems. That’s why writers are crazy.”

“I went nuclear on my publisher not to have a headless woman on the cover.”

“You shouldn’t be taken less seriously as writer because of your gender.”

“Endings are hard. There’s a significant amount of psychological pressure when you don’t know how the novel is going to end. But it’s also thrilling.”

“Flannery O’Connor said that she liked a story that was like a sandwich she eats on a Thursday and makes her sick on a Saturday. It’s got to stay with you.”

“There is no time in the psychological.”

“When you’re looking for feedback on something you need a reader who will accept the story on its own terms, who won’t try to impose on it their idea of what a story should be.”

“Stuff: In the end it doesn’t mean anything.”

“The only you fail to make something better is by not trying.”

“We can’t help but remake ourselves constantly. Have to really work at being stuck.”

“Fortune-telling: Sometimes we want to invest someone with the authority to tell us what we already know.”

“You never know what in your life you’re going to use in a book.”

“Characters who are omnipotent ruin the hell out of your plot.”

“I like to be the writer, the reader, and the character simultaneously.”

“Isabel Allende said writing is lonely; it’s the response that reconnects you to the world.”

“You can visit a country by reading its folktales.”

“Why did they give the new Star Wars movie to J.J. Abrams? I know exactly what that movie is going to be, I don’t need to see it. They should have given it to someone like Eli Roth to direct.”

“The idea that terrifies you the most, that’s the story to write.”

“Writing is not a choice. It’s like I have no choice but to write.”

“Michael Bay is actually our greatest independent director.”

“A writer has to be willing to torture his characters.”

“A story is like a piano: a finite number of keys but an infinite number of melodies.”

“Writer’s block is really just the critical voice overwhelming the creative voice.”

Those quoted above include: a group of gently snarky USC students; Janet Fitch; Ben Fountain; Lauren Groff; Elizabeth Berg; Amity Gaige; Nalo Hopkinson; Gennifer Albin; Mark Frost; Cornelia Funke; Lauren Oliver; Lissa Price; Veronica Roth; Victoria Schwab