There's worse that people can steal from you than money.

Every day: Wear sunblock. Cover your gray. Do not go insane. Eat less fats and sugars. Do more sit-ups. Don’t start forgetting stuff. Trim the hair in your ears. Take calcium. Moisturize. Every day. Freeze in time to stay in one place forever. Do not get frigging old.

Picture the moment when your mom and dad first saw you as something other than a pretty, tiny version of them. You as them, but improved. Better educated. Innocent. Then picture when you stopped being their dream.

Think of a rock polisher, one of those drums, goes round and round, rolls twenty-four/seven, full of water and rocks and gravel. Grinding it all up. Round and round. Polishing those ugly rocks into gemstones. That’s the earth. Why it goes around. We’re the rocks. And what happens to us—the drama and pain and joy and war and sickness and victory and abuse—why, that’s just the water and sand to erode us. Grind us down. To polish us up, nice and bright.

The only thing I shy away from is non-consensual violence. I can't write a story where someone is a simple victim because it's boring.

I haven't had a TV in 10 years, and I really don't miss it. 'Cause it's always so much more fun to be with people than it ever was to be with a television.

When you're an addict, you can go without feeling anything except drunk or stoned or hungry. Still, when you compare this to other feelings, to sadness, anger, fear, worry, despair, and depression, well, an addiction no longer looks so bad. It looks like a very viable option.