What does it mean to be born? After we die, will it be the same thing as it was before we were born? Or a different kind of nothingness? Because there might be knowledge then. Memory.

Memory blurs, that's the point. If memory didn't blur you wouldn't have the fool's courage to do things again, again, again, that tear you apart.

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

I never change, I simply become more myself.

How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.

Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.

Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light.

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be

Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!

we know little of the things for which we pray

I stumbled out into the courtyard to try to flee my misery, but of course we can never flee the misery that is within us.

Stop. Talking."Her whisper was muffled against his lips, and his answering chuckle was muffled by hers."What would you have me do instead?""For starters? Put your mouth to better use.

Forgiveness is hard for me, man. It is for most American-Western males. It's a sign of weakness.

I was a good kid, but I was just very chatty. Teachers were rarely entertained, but occasionally a child was, which was enough for me. Everything was so urgent. I needed to say it immediately.

Vagueness is at times an indication of nearness to a perfect truth.

I have been a gigantic Rolling Stones fan since approximately the Spanish-American War.

As a person, I'm anti-violence.

With that strange knowing that comes over me, like a clairvoyance, I know that I am sure of myself and my enormous and alarmingly timeless love for you; which will always be.