I told myself I did not have to live as I once did. I did not have to re-create the violent moments that used to come aborning like a sulfurous match flaring off a thumbnail.

There's nothing like rejection to make you do an inventory of yourself.

I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I'm going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box.

If there is any human tragedy, there is only one, and it occurs when we forget who we are and remain silent while a stranger takes up residence inside our skin.

The system shaves the dice on the side of those with money and power, and anyone who believes otherwise deserves anything that happens to him.

You do it a day at a time. You write as well as you can, you put it in the mail, you leave it under submission, you never leave it at home.

And like most middle-aged people who hear the clock ticking in their lives, I had come to resent a waste or theft of my time that was greater than any theft of my goods or money.

How do you explain to yourself the casual manner in which you threw your life away?

...and I wonder if there is any way to adequately describe the folly that causes us to undo all the great gifts of both Earth and Heaven.

When you find the right people, you never let go. The people who count are the ones who are your friends in lean times. You have all the friends you want when things are going well.

That's one of the great advantages of age. You can say, I don't want to, I don't care, you can throw temper tantrums, and nobody minds.

My deceased grandmother on my mom's side was a real fairy godmother, who lived to be 102 and who I always feel is looking after me.

Strangeness is an ingredient necessary in beauty.

I don't worry about how accurately I convey my personality. I learned early on that it's almost impossible to accurately portray yourself.

I am perfectly willing for my music to exist with somebody else's taste.

I have been a lucky man. But someone has to be.

I am, Sir, a brother of the angle.

A long headline that really says something is more effective than a brief heading that says nothing.

The death of a library, any library, suggests that the community has lost its soul.

The second time I went to jail, I was like, 'okay, this is not the move.'

Steve, it's OK. I know Angle is a dork, but he's a dangerous dork, our dork and your backup dork!