In some ways, blogging is like drinking - it gives a person permission to be a total asshole.

The line between normal and crazy seemed impossibly thin. A person would have to be an expert tightrope walker in order not to fall.

To me, these people were as exotic as animals in a zoo. I'd never seen anything like them. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to be one of them or simply live among them taking notes and photographs.

When people meet me, many times they're very surprised because they expect someone who is kind of wacky with seven piercings and very hip and cool and New York City, and I'm not.

I remember, no matter how impossible it seemed that any given day would end, it always did. This one would, too.

The only other people who have had experiences similar to those of this man were locked up inside institutions for the criminally insane. The difference is, this guy gets business cards.

Real optimism is not the pep talk you give yourself. It is earned through the labor involved in emotional housekeeping.