Just because you have stopped sinking doesn't mean you're not still underwater.

We can only die in the future, I thought; right now we are always alive.

Sometimes a flat-footed sentence is what serves, so you don't get all writerly: 'He opened the door.' There, it's open.

They say the smart dog obeys but the smarter dog knows when to disobey.

Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.

Wear your heart on the page, and people will read to find out how you solved being alive.

In my head there's a broken balcony I fall off of when I speak.

if it's true your life flashes past your eyes before you die, then it is also the truth that your life rushes forth when you are ready to start to truly be alive.

I sleep with a glass of water on the nightstand so I can see by its level if the coastal earth is trembling or if the shaking is still me.

I want to know everything about you, so I tell you everything about myself.

I exaggerated even before I began to exaggerate, because it's true — nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.

Unless I had the spirit of prayer, I could do nothing.

Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs.

The kind of job where you come in and work 9 to 5, and where someone tells you what to do all day is becoming scarcer and scarcer.

The mathematics of rhythm are universal. They don't belong to any particular culture.

Hatred makes us all ugly.

Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted.

I'm always looking for the next challenge.

Every sensitive person carries in himself old cities enclosed by ancient walls

What we have got to do now is use this event, the resignation of the whole commission, to drive through root and branch reform.

All the old rules - if you say some crazy stuff you get your show canceled or you get your campaign ended - don't apply in the world of social media. They don't apply in the world of reality TV.