I really love idiot, enlightened characters - these characters who fail to engage with the drama of their immediate circumstances; they fail to be reactive and enrolled by drama as it happens around them.

No matter how many luxuries you get, something will be missing. No matter how carefully you choose, you'll never be totally happy.

That's what I love about fire, how it would kill me as quick as anybody else. How it can't know I'm its mother. It's so beautiful and powerful and beyond feeling anything for anybody, that's what I love about fire.

Rant Casey used to say, "No matter what happens, it's always now..." Talk about cryptic. I think what Rant meant was, we live in the present moment of reality, and no matter what's come before, no matter how much we loved a person or a dog, when it attacks us we'll react to that moment of danger.

I'm really glad that I made a lot of mistakes, poorly chose my friends throughout my twenties, and didn't have a rocket trajectory that set me on one path without making any mistakes or having any setbacks. The older I get, the more I realize that it's all of these failed, horrible things from my past, and the stories that they generated, that are the things I will draw on for the rest of my life.

Folks build a reputation by attacking you while you’re alive - or praising you after you ain’t.

Some of the best ideas I get seem to happen when I'm doing mindless manual labor or exercise. I'm not sure how that happens, but it leaves me free for remarkable ideas to occur.