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.

What they don't teach you in art school is how your whole life is about discovering who you already were.

Katherine Kenton remains among the generation of women who feel that the most sincere form of flattery is the male erection.

There are worse things than finding your wife and child dead. You can watch the world do it. You can watch your wife get old and bored. You can watch your kids discover everything in the world you've tried to save them from. Drugs, divorce, conformity, disease. All the nice clean books, music, television. Distraction.

A little old lady sitting at the front of the bus can do nothing to change civil rights.

You become smart when you don't need to quote someone anymore." I am still stupid: I quoted Chuck Palahiniuk

No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.