I do believe that great love brings with it the terror and possibility of great loss.

The most precious love is often the kind that isn't returned, and that is given freely.

Nonfiction ties your hands a bit, and just like writing poetry in rhyme, it can force you to make more brutal decisions in terms of word choice, plot, etc.

I do write fiction, and I find it more difficult, but also more liberating. On the one hand, you can make up the story, but you have to make up the story.

I love poetry, but I find it so difficult to write well.

I write one poem a year, usually in January or February.

It's terrible to know that no matter how you try to help your child, his condition will worsen.

I don't believe in God, but I do believe in that chaotic reality, and also this: that none of us knows anything about anything. Period.

People romanticize, I think, this notion of life. But life at all costs is not life, it's ego-extension.

I honestly turned to writing because I didn't know what else to do, and because a friend had gently suggested it.

I think it's more important to concentrate on trying to be, simply, happy. Once you've known deep despair, you feel even more motivated to be as happy as possible. That's how I feel.

I don't reckon misery loves any damn thing at all.

I know how to have a conversation, but I've never done improv. I've never taken improv classes.

Don't ever rope me in as a late-night talk show host. I don't want to be one.

I think I've been around for a while. But I still have to pay my dues.

The way I challenge myself is by writing something that really engages me, that doesn't have an easy answer, and isn't always an easy book to write.

The relationship between fascism and robotics, for instance, it's very clear that it's going to become way more important as time goes by.

You think I'm going to ask these sweet 14 year olds to ask their parents to buy a $100 ticket then run around in latex and lip sync? No way.

Basic human contact - the meeting of eyes, the exchanging of words - is to the psyche what oxygen is to the brain. If you're feeling abandoned by the world, interact with anyone you can.

At the Christmas party, the secretary with the long red hair ate three pickles, and four salesmen panicked.

You really just have to have a good attitude, challenge yourself, and you can accomplish great things.