Children will listen to anything elders say to survive, and if you grew up without an elder telling you there was a god, what did your parents say to you?

Voice comes to you through a spell, a trance. The best voices are not you... they're a little away from you.

Professional Southerners sicken me.

Literature is the history of the soul.

What a bog and labyrinth the human essence is... We are all overbrained and overemotioned.

You need to see a bit of hell now and then. That, and great joy.

If you are able to explain suffering, a man once told him, you weren't really there.

I don't write under the ghost of Faulkner. I live in the same town and find his life and work inspiring, but that's it. I have a motorcycle and tool along the country lanes. I travel at my own speed.

Randomness I love. And I still love just a holler right in the middle of an ongoing narrative. Pain or joy, ecstasy.

The Deep South might be wretched, but it can howl.

My best stories come out of nowhere, with no concern for form at all.

I like maxims that don't encourage behavior modification.-Calvin

He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small For the dear God who loveth us He made and loveth all.

I'm no Leonardo DiCaprio.

I have a nightmare about Tony [Blair] and Gordon [Brown] killing each other. Not every month, but now and then. I also have a recurring dream about losing.

Regret doesn't budge things; it seems crazy that the force of all that human want can't amend a moment, can't even stir a pebble.

I don't really believe in vices. I love wine and cheese and chocolate, but they're what make life fun. They're a pleasure and an important part of living.

America and Mexico are both a nation of immigrants and we are a nation of laws and we can act accordingly.

Music is so hard to talk about in many ways, It communicates beyond what our language can put across, and having to sit there and analyze it and talk about it is a struggle for me.

What calmed me down finally was when my girlfriend got pregnant.

I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot.