Maybe it was a Patty Hearst thing. Stockholm syndrome or whatever it's called when you're being held against your will but then you become sucked in and fall in love. Or if not exactly love, you fall into something you can't see out of. 'I can't shoot a machine gun' becomes 'Hey, this hardly has any kick-back!

Even when we lose an arm or a leg, there's not less of us but more. Human experience weighs more than human tissue.

There is nothing about myself that I wouldn't reveal or write about. I don't care how horrendous or ridiculous I may appear in person or in print. There is great freedom in not caring what other people think.

your mind is like an unsafe neighborhood; don't go there alone.

I thought, I can't do advertising any more, so I was downloading all these PDF applications from community colleges. And I thought, I'll become a paramedic. I'll get a two-year associate degree, if I can get in.

This is how you survive the unsurvivable, this is how you lose that which you cannot bear to lose, this is how you reinvent yourself, overcome your abusers, fulfill your ambitions and meet the love of your life: by following what is true, no matter where it leads you.

I don't think writers - in general - ever achieve the fame of movie stars. For the simple reason that only a fraction of the population reads. But I guess there are exceptions.