I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful.

Our generation has had no Great Depression, no Great War. Our war is spiritual. Our depression is our lives.

The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.

We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.

Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave.

Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?

You know, the condom is the glass slipper of our generation. You slip it on when you meet a stranger. You dance all night, then you throw it away.

If you love something set it free, but don't be surprised if it comes back with herpes.

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known.

The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up.

It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.

Pain makes people who they are.

‎I cannot alter the past, but the future is very much in my hands.

Friendship needs no words-it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.

Schools should be places to learn, not to teach.

Thus the will to power strives towards oppositions, towards displeasure. There is a will to suffering at the foundation of all organic life (contrary to "happiness" as "goal").

I don't expect to be understood at all.

Death is strong, but Life is stronger.

Failures are life's way of nudging you and letting you know you are off course. Trying new things and not being afraid to fail along the way are more important than what you learn in school.

And I was lucky enough to have teachers that really, really looked out for me and really encouraged all that. And in rural Louisiana, that was a rare thing back then.