Being celibate was so wonderful. It taught me a lot about love, but even more about my own self outside of love. I'd never met myself out of love before, really.

The frustration of being marginalized often gets misdirected at the most visible members of one's own community, because they are more accessible than the real agents of marginalization.

Abandonment by a lover won't kill us. But it awakens the parts of us that remember when it could.

It has been my experience that the people I judge most harshly are the ones in whom I recognize some part of myself.

Anyone who makes a life of what they love is a hero to me, and it's important for those people to be visible in every kind of life, every kind of love, every kind of work.

New York at night, from its bridges, is a miracle. When I first came to the city, it took all my fantasies and set them on fire, turned them into flickering constellations of light.

You don't have to write like David Foster Wallace or James Baldwin or Maggie Nelson - indeed, you shouldn't. Those writers are doing it better than you ever could.

I can still discern people's weaknesses, but it doesn't make me want to exploit them; it makes me want to hug them.

Torch songs are confessions. They are an expression of feeling that cannot be concealed or contained or minimized. They are marked by anguish, yes, but also by yielding.

The craft work becomes a mediator between me and my secrets, between me and the listener.

Letting go of the cozy stories you've been carrying around is devastating. But there's more room for new stuff after you do it.

No two people ever view the world from exactly the same perspective, understand things the same way, human or not. The best we can ever do is try.

Every time you tell a lie an angel punches a unicorn in the face with a kitten.

Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.

Let us have compassion upon each other, and let the strong tenderly nurse the weak into strength, and let those who can see guide the blind until they can see the way for themselves.

It's hard to see blessings in a violent culture

There is a fine line between passion and gas.

There is always something to miss, no matter where you are.

The turtle only makes progress when it's neck is stuck out.

I plan to write more songs of my own, especially on behalf of the animals we needlessly raise for food, at their great expense, and at great expense to our precious, deteriorating planet.