I can only see right in front of me when I'm writing, you know? I never think of it as raw or personal or anything but where I'm at in the moment. But I can see it sort of after I finish.

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.

We all have our things that we would rather live without. It's how we live with them when we have no choice that makes us or breaks us.

Damn this human who had come into her life and made himself so important to her

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: Try to please everybody.

Look inside yourself and you'll find a world of things (a world of your own experiences)worth writing about.

I'm kind of a chatty person and the props guys would have to handcuff me and tie me up and sometimes I'd just be chatting and they'd just pop it back in... like: "OK now, shut up!"

Tattoos are like stories - they're symbolic of the important moments in your life. Sitting down, talking about where you got each tattoo and what it symbolizes, is really beautiful.

It is the imperfect that astonishes and attracts us.

A non-virtual function says, you have to do this and you must do it this way. A virtual function says you have to do this, but you don't have to do it this way. That's their fundamental difference.

I don't want to be 60 years old standing on stage telling some jokes. I want my life to mean something.

It is your friends who make your world.