It was the No. 1-selling e-book on the planet. With about 12 copies.

We had no idea [it would be so successful], ... The odds of the book selling 100,000 copies, much less 2 million, are immense. ... It's a lucky fluke.

No gentleman can be without three copies of a book: one for show, one for use, and one for borrowers

. . .In a heartbeat, you will fall right into that novel, that poem, the story that you are most in love with right now. When you learn to be able to decide in the moment to take breaks from your internal voices—even though it’s only for a split second—you will be taking your first baby steps toward the full-out exhilaration of living in the midst of the wholly realized writer’s life.

Then all the negatives—yes, even your cherished writer’s block ego trip—will fade into background noise, then you will find silence, and your story will take over. Before you know it, you will be working calmly and clearly for hours, rather than for a couple minutes.

1 hour, not 1 second, 2 hours, not 2 seconds, 3 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours of allowing your mind to come to rest from the horrid, every day, mental chatter we lock ourselves up with—a time to anchor within the natural spaciousness that you already know instinctively, know from deep within will make you feel full inside. . . .

I've got to stop being such a snob about leather-bound books, he reminded himself. E-books do have their moments.

Someday I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies I give away.