Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a very dirty floor.

Memory blurs, that's the point. If memory didn't blur you wouldn't have the fool's courage to do things again, again, again, that tear you apart.

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

I never change, I simply become more myself.

How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.

Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.

Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light.

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be

Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!

Stress and anxiety cause our brains to release chemicals that put lines in our faces and tear us down emotionally and spiritually.

My dad believes that bad disguises itself - that danger hides. I think it's the opposite. The truly horrible things about the world are always reaching out for you.

Love is at the root of a positive attitude.

Earth is wonderful stadium to play, till you are on pitch.

This idea that America is somehow on the verge of collapse, this vision of violence and chaos everywhere, doesn't really jibe with the experience of most people.

Money will not purchase character or good government.

I'm always announcing my retirement. I'm still not retired.

Of which beauty will you speak? There are many: there are a thousand: there is one for every look, for every spirit, adapted to each taste, to each particular constitution.

I'm now a legend, whether I want to be or not.

Hell hath no fury like a drag queen scorned.