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.

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

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.

May you see great visions.

There is nothing wrong with revenge. The wrong has already been done, or there would be no need to even the score.

Just because you have a learning difficulty or difference doesn't mean you aren't smart.

What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of suns?

A black man singing about a blond girl was potential trouble.

It takes courage to set priorities because doing so is an admission that American policy cannot be all things to all people - or rather to all interest groups

I guess maybe you don’t get to be the Merlin of the White Council by saving up frequent-flier miles

Prayer is a confession of one's own unworthiness and weakness.

I’ll play Pretty Pretty Princess with you if you just let me watch a little bit of March Madness.

Unless the guitar works as a color, then I don't use it, so I haven't been playing guitar too much lately.