The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness".

You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.

Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.

The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.

There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.

Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.

Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.

Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope.

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

To one's enemies: "I hate myself more than you ever could.

The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.

There ain't no "baby mama drama" up in this Vortex, homie!

Our worship of God is not a part of our lives

Ay Dad, brush my hair one time. Hey pops! Come brush my hair.

Genuine tragedy is a case not of right against wrong but of right against right - two equally justified ethical principles embodied in people of unchangeable will.

When we want to move beyond the pain, when we want to feel better, when we are ready to move beyond where we are, emotionally and spiritually, we must forgive.

No one comes up to me asking for a crack dealer's number. People come up to me to talk about lyrics, about music, about the band.

I take this evanescence and lubricity of all objects, which lets them slip through our fingers then when we clutch hardest, to be the most unhandsome part of our condition.

Every religion is the product of the conceptual mind attempting to describe the mystery.

That's the great thing about being a writer. You dream up amazing questions... and then dream up even more amazing answers.

The Democratic National Committee is virtually 100 percent anti-firearms ownership, and the Republican National Committee stands on the side of the freedom.