I have no interest in being a trained ballerina. People should dance how they want to dance. I want to be the funky chicken.

I just realized that I never look at a painting and ask, 'Is this painting fictional or non-fictional?' It’s just a painting.

Writing should be like skirts. Long enough to cover what it needs to cover and short enough to maintain interest.

Samuel Clemens isn't Mark Twain. Mark Twain is Mark Twain. He doesn't become the thing until he creates himself.

We like something because someone else liked it.

It's like that where these little anecdotes come through, and I guess that's what I like about books like that [He Stopped Loving Her Today]. Fiction now is so experiential.

The things that I have loved have always been those extremes where there has been some kind of apocalypse in the person's life, and they come out unscathed or scathed.

So much of our culture is bought and manufactured - not to say great art can't come out of that. Some art is really amazing that is manufactured and sold, like action movies and stuff.

I guess the things I have always loved are from people who were just being themselves. They were doing these things because they couldn't do it any other way. It was for them.

I think maybe it's my personality. People don't like my face.

It's weird. People want you to know that they write. They want you to know they're a musician, rather than making music or making stories. It's the strangest thing.

Pay attention to the behavior of the most successful people.

We never can tell how our lives may work to the account of the general good, and we are not wise enough to know if we have fulfilled our mission or not.

Desire is always followed by boredom. And only love can defeat boredom. Love with a capital L; we all dream of it.

When we look up at the sky, we are trying to find the way to ourselves.

The crashes people remember, but drivers remember the near misses.

You have a soft spot. Contrary to popular belief, it is not where you are weak, it is the gateway to indestructible power.

But when I hear a great song, I can't help but be inspired by it, regardless of whatever genre that song falls under.

I think my magical dream land would have all of my friends from high school and elementary school. I'm extremely nostalgic so my closest friends are people from my childhood.

I also derive a great deal of pleasure from horses and dogs... the ocean... and love.