A knife, it felt like a knife, and I'd discovered that despite everything that's happened, I still had an endless untapped potential for getting hurt.

I don't want to die without a few scars.

I came to Party Crashing because accidents happen. People you love will die. Nothing you treasure will last forever. And I need to accept and embrace that fact.

Your past is just a story. And once you realize this it has no power over you.

Destruction is always an attractive idea. My brother and I used to spend weeks making models of cities so that we could destroy them in 15 minutes. There's a fantastic joy in destroying something that you've meticulously built. Then you're free to build a new thing. Destruction and creation they're inseparable.

There was no real sense of life because she had nothing to contrast it with.

People didn't know who I was or why I was there, so they started inventing stories about me. I was a registered sex offender and I'd just been released from prison and was being forced to do community-service work. I was a murderer, an arsonist - all these horrific things had been projected on me because no one knew what to make of this white guy who showed up and made toast at 5 o'clock every morning.