I worked probably fewer jobs than most people, or fewer real soul-killing jobs than other people. I've been a typist, a typesetter, a keyliner, cappuccino-maker. I think I've been pretty lucky.

Donkeys are the most misunderstood and abused animals around the world.

I think by writing about a place with great specificity, you manage to make it universal.

My donkeys are Jack and Don Quixote. They're very smart, very cautious. Much of what people consider stubbornness in donkeys is actually cautiousness.

As a writer, I can live somewhat independently, occupying nooks and crannies and finding meaning there. I can even live in my mind a good portion of most days.

A mathematical proof is beautiful, but when you're finished, it's really only about one thing. A story can be about many things.

That's where I live, a junkyard in a neighborhood of junkyards. We have three tractors from the 1940s and '50s, several old pickup trucks, and a pile of scrap metal.

I have a second-degree black belt in Okinawan kobudo weapons training.

Time is never wasted coming to an old man bar.

I grew up with donkeys, as well as horses, but I'm more interested in donkeys.

Where I live you're not supposed to shoot a firearm within a quarter mile of a dwelling.

...when 'empowering women' becomes 'overpowering women' not only is it the polar opposite of feminism

You have a genius for bringing trouble upon yourself

Wit is far more often a shield than a lance.

I make movies that nobody will see. I've made movies that even I have never seen.

To love is to find your own soul Through the soul of the beloved one.

Simplification is one of the most difficult things to do.

Theater is the only thing I always came back to. When I was 9, I asked my mom if I could be on TV. She was like, "Well, okay. You can try."

But we are all insane, anyway ... The suicides seem to be the only sane people.

A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom.

Mature psychological health cannot exist unless we are capable of doubting any form of conceptual certitude about ourselves or anything else.