I think my characters - well, at least a few of them - are hoping or searching for some kind of contact with god.

Some people were born just so they could be buried.

If a person does this for just a couple of years and discovers that it just isn't for him, that's okay. At least he can move on knowing that he gave it his best shot.

Look, girls don't care how many push-ups you can do. They just want to get high and wear flowers in their hair. Maybe steal a car.

The Oxys filled holes in me I hadn't realized were empty. It was, at least for those first few months, a wonderful way to be disabled. I felt blessed.

I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it.

Though there are still many good people out there in the world, it seems that they're vastly outnumbered by the stupid, selfish, violent ones.

I spent thirty-two years in a paper mill in southern Ohio, and before that I worked in a meatpacking plant and a shoe factory.

A lot of people get the wrong impression, think there's something romantic or tragic about hitting bottom.

When I turned fifty, I decided to quit the mill and go to graduate school.

I sort of like writing about weird characters, I guess.

Have you ever heard the expression: Walk a mile in my shoes, and then judge me? And write your own books.

If all things are possible with God, then all things are possible to him who believes in Him.

It's marvellous to be popular, but foolish to think it will last.

Have faith in God; God has faith in you.

At the back of our brains is a blaze of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life is to dig for this sunrise of wonder.

Purposeful action is thus the goal of all that is truly educative.

Worry is an intrusion into God's providence.

And those who saw, it did surprise, Such drops could fall from human eyes.

SM is an art. Doing it well requires more than a bag full of expensive whips and exotic electrical toys, a closet full of fetish clothes, or a basement filled with bondage furniture.

Charisma becomes the undoing of leaders. It makes them inflexible, convinced of their own infallibility, unable to change