You instinctively know that nothing will ever be the same, and you have to carry that knowledge around with you like a huge weight. The next time you see your girl, you can’t look her straight in the eyes the same way you did for all those years.

I was starting to come to grips with the fact that I had created a lot of pain and suffering around me, not just within me.

Having a moment of clarity was one thing; I'd had moments like that before. It had to be followed with a dedicated push of daily exercise. It's a trite axiom, but practice DOES make perfect. If you want to be a strong swimmer or an accomplished musician, you have to practice. It's the same with sobriety, though the stakes are higher. If you don't practice your program every day, you're putting yourself in a position where you could fly out of the orbit one more time.

Changing and inventing new things is great. That's what we like to do.

It was like the Wizard of Oz had spoken, and what he said was too ludicrous to take seriously.

I had to educate him that there was no such thing as writer's block, that writers write when they write, and when they don't, they don't.

You instinctively know that nothing will ever be the same, and you have to carry that knowledge around with you like a huge weight. The next time you see your girl, you can’t look her straight in the eyes the same way you did for all those years.