It was my misfortune-or salvation-to be at all times perfectly conscious of my misperceptions of reality.

Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It's you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever.

The only way to stay sane is to go a little crazy.

Every window in Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco.

I am not a nurse escorting six lunatics to the ice cream parlor.

I told her once I wasn’t good at anything. She told me survival is a talent.

I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can't. You hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside.

My chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom came from the fact that I was living a life based on my incapacities, which were numerous.

Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.

An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.

As far as I could see, life demanded skills I didn't have.

Horror is like the humor, the one without the other can't exist. Horror makes life more interesting like the humor!

the distinction between talent and genius is definite. Talent combines and uses; genius combines and creates.

Suicide is, after all, the opposite of the poem.

Female artists are the perfect example of a creator: They know how to make life and art with their bodies. Life comes from their bodies, so on a very basic level, they have more to write about.

Why are people getting on elevators shocked to find people getting off elevators?

They're all sources of material. What I love about what I do, the more you talk about your life, there are so many people who have similar experiences.

It had been a humdrum couple of days, reaffirming his belief in reincarnation: everything was so boring that this could not be the first time he'd experienced it.

I wanted to become an engineer, or get a masters in business. But I had the opportunity to do films when I was about 25 and it was a great way to express myself.

The cleverest character in comedy is the clown, for he who would make people take him for a fool, must not be one.

The dog is more social. I am not saying that cats are totally unsocial but dogs are more social.