Night poured itself down my throat. Night was my wine and my meat. Night wed me and bedded me, widowed me and murdered me and resurrected me whole a thousand times over with each hour.

Nothing real is pretty, she said. Only a doll is pretty. And a pretty doll drinks out of a tiny cup forever. A woman wants a big cup.

Trouble is, most times, when you go looking to sell your soul, nobody's buying.

Buck up, baby blowfish. Just puff up bigger than your sadness and scare it right off. That's the only way to live in the awful old ocean.

Anything is a poem if you say it often enough.

I abandoned her. It's the one capital crime of fatherhood. Mothers can fail a thousand different ways. A father's only job is: do not abandon this child.

No, love, in real life you can get all the way to death and never have finished one single story.

Love me, and I will laugh for you, and if you can make me laugh, my laughter will, quite simply, ransom the whole of the world from death.

Raising interest rates is voo-doo. You can't deal with a global system problem by trying to solve it with this.

I was trying to be this person who is cool, eternally rocking.

I grew up listening to a lot of soul music, and a lot of folk music.

Do you know how many times a week people ask me why I'm yelling?

But I think it has to do with what you believe about yourself. If you believe you're damned, then you are. But if you don't...

Trust God where you cannot see Him. Do not try to penetrate the cloud He brings over you; rather look to the bow that is on it. The mystery is God's; the promise is yours.

I COULD CARE LESS ABOUT CRITICS, LIKE I SAID THEY DONT BUY TICKETS.

The essay is one of my favourite forms of writing, and I feel like what's inside is really personal, more so than with shorter pieces.

I'm not into sugar for kids, but you don't want your kid to be the carrot kid. There's always the kid at the birthday parties carrying a bag of carrots. You've got to let them eat a little cake.