But feelings, no matter how strong or “ugly,” are not a part of who you are. They are the radio stations your mind listens to if you don’t give it something better to do. Feelings are fluid and dynamic; they change frequently. Feelings are something you HAVE, not something you ARE. Like physical beauty, a cold sore, or an opinion. Admitting you feel rage or terrible pain or regret or some old, rotten blame does not mean these feelings are part of who you are as a person. What these feelings mean is, you have to change your thinking to be free of them.

I hate news and information and anything that threatens to puncture the bubble of oblivion in which I live.

Women smirk at baldness. How adorable would they find it if they began to lose their breasts in their late twenties? If both tits just shrunk up - unevenly I might add - and eventually turned into wine-cork nubs. Then it would be a different story. Then men would get the pity that they deserve. As far as I'm concerned, baldness is the male breast cancer only worse, because almost everyone gets it. True, it's not life threatening. Just social-life threatening. But in New York City, there is no difference.

Decisions are beautiful. They are the evidence of thought and care. Decisions are the polishing cloths of life.

In general, advertising isn't a "creative" atmosphere. It's a business atmosphere and your job is puzzle solving. My favorite aspect of the business, I guess, was presenting to clients. What I enjoyed least were the clients. Worried corporate brand managers, trying to dumb-down their ads for the stupid American population. I hated the disrespect that these people had for "consumers."

The most important thing for a writer to do is to write. It really doesn't matter what you write as long as you are able to write fluidly, very quickly, very effortlessly. It needs to become not second nature but really first nature to you. And read; you need to read and you need to read excellent books and then some bad books. Not as many bad books, but some bad books, so that you can see what both look like and why both are what they are.

The past doesn't haunt us, we haunt the past.