It's impossible to read a distinctive stylist like Faulkner, Joyce, Kafka, Mann, Woolf, James - and many more - without wanting to write, however entirely different one's writing will be.

Memory blurs, that's the point. If memory didn't blur you wouldn't have the fool's courage to do things again, again, again, that tear you apart.

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

I never change, I simply become more myself.

How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.

Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.

Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light.

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be

Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!

It is our responsibility as believers to bring the will of God to the people

I'm bad and I'm going to hell, and I don't care. I'd rather be in hell than anywhere where you are.

I don't think anybody should read anything except for fun because you won't learn anything unless you enjoy it.

Courage is resistance to fear mastery of fear-not absence of fear.

Joy is like restless day; but peace divine like quiet night; Lead me, O Lord, till perfect Day shall shine through Peace to Light.

The best way to learn about wine is in the drinking

I've had only three wives and three guitars in my life, though I've flirted with others.

The damaged love the damaged. True fact.

I can take strange detours and linger in places and do things that have no budgetary restraints.

Football was everything to me. There was the physical aspect, sure. I did pushups and sit-ups every night, even as a kid. But I also just studied the game constantly. It was my life.