A man's bookcase will tell you everything you'll ever need to know about him

Poetry teaches us music, metaphor, condensation and specificity.

My hero in comic books is Jack Kirby: 'Spider-Man,' 'Fantastic Four,' 'Captain America,' Marvel Comics. He was really the basis for Marvel Comics.

A peasant that reads is a prince in waiting.

Every day that we wake up is a good day. Every breath that we take is filled with hope for a better day. Every word that we speak is a chance to change what is bad into something good.

The first thing you have to know about writing is that it is something you must do everyday. There are two reasons for this rule: Getting the work done and connecting with your unconscious mind.

Losing my parents really set me adrift in more ways than one. It's not just losing them. It's losing the possibility of family.

I took up writing to escape the drudgery of that every day cubicle kind of war.

The life most of us live are lives we are forced to live by immediate needs, influences, and pressures.

Our collective freedom... depends on our ability to defend the rights of others.

If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day... You don't go to a well once but daily. You don't skip a child's breakfast or forget to wake up in the morning.

Sacred dreams are dreamt day by day.

While many people are proud of being self-made, it only explains all the flaws.

He replies nothing but monosyllables. I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.

I've never made the separation between, say, the museum and the hardware store. I mean, I enjoy both of them, and I want to combine the two.

You can understand why I'm a believer. I have seen miracles.

The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss himself.'

Wherever there’s a conductor, you’re sure to find a dead composer!

Confess your sins to the Lord and you will be forgiven; confess them to man and you will be laughed at.

The music I write, I feel, is not the kind of music for a 25-year-old.

I have suffered more from my bad dancing than from all the misfortunes and miseries of my life put together.