As a writer, putting words on the page is how I pay attention.

If the thrill of hunting were in the hunt, or even in the marksmanship, a camera would do just as well.

You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.

The sky slowly pulled up its blue dress to reveal night.

The more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them. It surprised him that strangers didn't stop each other on the street to say I love you.

His voice was handsome and broken, like a cobblestone street.

To feel alone is to be alone.

Words are capable of making experience more vivid, and also of organizing it. They can scare us, and they can comfort us.

When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own.

It has shown me that everything is illuminated in the light of the past. It is always along the side of us...on the inside, looking out.

I would like to be judged on the validity of my arguments, not as a victim.

The Church limits her sacramental services to the faithful. Christ gave Himself upon the cross a ransom for all.

There could be few men whose love for a woman had been written on his face with a knife.

For all that has been, Thanks. To all that shall be, Yes.

As soon as the audit's finished, it will be released.

I have fun with it and I am honest and open about the way I lead my life and don't mislead anyone. I've had the time of my life and thank God for that, it would be such a waste otherwise.

All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.

If you're any good at all, you know you can be better.

We end up with the contradictory picture of a society that appears to throw its doors wide open to women, but translates her every step towards success as having been damaging.

The photograph, the clothes, the sets - this was about 1974, and I started hanging out with my friend Richard Sold, who was playing in a band with Patti Smith.