Very nice, " said Rick after a while. "Very nice, " he repeated, with more emphasis the second time. "What is?" I asked, turning to him, though I knew. "Everything, " he said. And it was true.

He kissed me hard and I kissed him back harder, like it was the end of an era that had lasted all of my life.

There's no way to know what makes one thing happen and not another. What leads to what. What destroys what. What causes what to flourish or die or take another course.

I didn't feel sad or happy. I didn't feel proud or ashamed. I only felt that in spite of all the things I'd done wrong, in getting myself here, I'd done right.

In my perception, the world wasn't a graph or formula or an equation. It was a story.

Perhaps by now I'd come far enough that I had the guts to be afraid.

Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves...

In the mornings, my pain was magnified by about a thousand. In the morning there weren’t only those sad facts about my life. Now there was also the additional fact that I was a pile of shit.

What if I forgave myself even though I'd done something I shouldn't have?

There was the woman I was before my mom died and the one I was now, my old life sitting on the surface of me like a bruise.

But now that she was dying, I knew everything. My mother was in me already. Not just the parts of her that I knew, but the parts of her that had come before me too.

As he walked, he felt the darkness behind him, following him. He swore he heard it whisper, “Run!

Liberace was certainly master and commander of the ivories ~ he is the only pianist I can watch or listen to without suffering a case of 'Stagefright Sympathy Sickness'.

I believe happiness is a chemical imbalance––it's a silly thing to strive for. But, satisfaction––if you seek satisfaction you can succeed.

Moments are precious in life

The one fact about the future of which we can be certain is that it will be utterly fantastic.

Jesus Christ was not begotten by the Holy Ghost.

There is but one philosophy and its name is fortitude! To bear is to conquer our fate.

I never design a building before I've seen the site and met the people who will be using it.

Writing is a solitary occupation, and we like it that way.

I grew up in the '80s and John Hughes was the filmmaker making serious movies for teenagers.