It seems disingenuous to ask a writer why she, or he, is writing about a violent subject when the world and history are filled with violence.

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!

If you are never the cause of someone's sadness, you will never have difficulties finding happiness.

I didn't say I wasn't gonna do rockabilly. I just said I ain't gonna sing no song that ain't a country song. I won't be known as anything but a country singer.

Now it's our turn to kick some tail!

I'm not one about trying to slow things down. What I try to do is create an atmosphere for my family where we can pretty much have whatever.

You probably have to trust that your work is following certain themes and certain movements, but then the rest is a kind of piecing together so that the whole becomes larger than the parts.

We don't need more stupid ideas.

Growing up I always shopped at Victoria's Secret with my mom and saw Angels like Gisele and Karolina Kurkova in the windows.

Death was a big part of my life growing up. I went to lots of funerals.

In the late '90s, R&B was dominant in the radio, and the white kids were taking it mainstream.

I hope you are never victims, but I hope you have no power over other people.