The material dictates the approach. I tell the stories in the way that feels natural to tell them. Certainly the last thing I want is to be "difficult."

When L.A.’s schizophrenia between Dreamland and Utopia was becoming socially manifest, the United States, which was always a place, went to war with America, which was always an idea.

a dream is only a memory of the future

Western music is arguably America's greatest contribution to the 20th century, cultural or otherwise.

If I had it to do all over again . . . I wouldn't change a thing.'. . . the final expression of narcissism, the last gesture of self-congratulation.

By the plain form of my delirium I will blast the obstruction of every form around me into something barely called shadow. I sail. I swim to you. I know the water.

In LA, you think you're making something up, but it's making you up.

To me experimental fiction ultimately is about the experiment and I'm not interested in experiments for their own sake.

Is the humanism intuitive or labored over?, the answer is: Yes. It begins intuitively, it becomes the reason for writing the thing, and then it's to be considered and fine-tuned and even calculated.

While I do believe I become a technically better writer over time, in others ways writing gets harder because inspiration is finite.

For better or worse I'm the writer I am today because of hearing those Dylan records. For better and most certainly not for worse, I'm the person I am today because of hearing Charles.

I am empowered and thankful for my parents’ love and support.

Come, my darling, it is never too late to begin our love again.

To liberate yourself from your own self-judgment is to liberate others from it as well. To love yourself is an act of love for the world.

I am not one to rely upon the expert procedure. It is the psychology I seek, not the fingerprint or the cigarette ash.

When have I ever given him the impression that I was okay with him just stopping by whenever he wanted to use my body as an organic garbage disposal?

Choices are powerful things. In fact, they're more powerful than most things.

I let the other guys handle the talking. I love playing.

What was intended to harm, God intended it all for good. And no matter what intends to harm you, God's arms have you. You can never be undone.

Prayer is so mighty an instrument that no one ever thoroughly mastered all its keys. They sweep along the infinite scale of man's wants and God's goodness.

Sin doesn't always look sinful to us; sometimes it looks beautiful. That's why we need grace to see sin for what it really is - dark, dangerous, enslaving and destructive.