it just breaks / a man's heart, watching / a girl so involved with her life, / without him like that.

Maybe if everyone walked around being in touch with each other's hidden pain it could work out and even be beautiful, but it doesn't feel safe to be the only compassionate person on the planet.

You try to be good, to be good and loving and nice and not hard, not tough, a sweet nice girl, not ugly, not full of ugliness, but people make it impossible.

How do you make a girl know she's beautiful? What is the system for that, what do you show her, how do you give her a new set of eyes and turn her face back to the mirror?

Maybe we could all take care of each other, I dreamed.

This is growing up, having to stomp out love, this is how people turn terrible.

you are right where you should be / now act like it

There are a lot of queers starved for entertainment from their own community.

i wanted to try things, everything, especially things that are illegal and have a faint whiff of glamour.

Sophie knew about power animals, everyone did...Sophie thought she might be a cat, she liked cats a lot.

She was just so sad. Her whole face hung with it, like sadness was her personal gravity.

I've done my best, and I begin to understand what is meant by 'the joy of strife'. Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.

Love is a wishbone cracked in two.

I've always loved Halloween: the one day of the year when you can blatantly dress as your number-one obsession and people will smile instead of snicker.

There have been fewer friends on earth than kings.

Let me know if you're going to do something stupid, kid, 'cause I'll ditch you like that.

Let's cut loose what you were given and find what you can seek.

When I was playing, my wife and kids would go on the road with me, and we would go to different lunch spots that we saw on "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives."

I did take composition lessons when I was in high school, so I wrote piano pieces. I wrote some chamber music. I don't think any of that was particularly interesting.

My mom listened to the Beatles and Elvis, a lot of different types of music.

But I can't listen to music too often. It affects your nerves, makes you want to say stupid, nice things, and stroke the heads of people who could create such beauty while living in this vile hell.