Rant would tell people: 'You're a different human being to everybody you meet.

I've met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, 'Why?' Why did I cause so much pain? Didn't I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can't I see how we're all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God's got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, 'No, that's not right.' Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything.

I don't want to die without any scars.

Maybe the only thing each of us can see is our own shadow. Carl Jung called this his shadow work. He said we never see others. Instead we see only aspects of ourselves that fall over them. Shadows. Projections. Our associations. The same way old painters would sit in a tiny dark room and trace the image of what stood outside a tiny window, in the bright sunlight. The camera obscura. Not the exact image, but everything reversed or upside down.

You realize that there's no point in doing anything if nobody's watching. You wonder, if there had been a low turnout at the crucifixion, would they have rescheduled?

Abortion occurs so frequently in my stories. Abortion sort of synthesizes both sex and death. To have sex and death placed as close to one another as possible is always a goal of mine.

Portland in particular is a cheap enough place to live that you can still develop your passion - painting, writing, music. People seem less status-conscious. Even wealthy people buy second-hand clothes and look a little bit homeless.