Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head.

Nothing shows you the straight line from here to death like a list.

If Marilyn Monroe was alive right now, what would she be doing?' Clawing at the roof of her coffin.

With the novels, I usually start from something in my own life that I can't resolve, so I turn it into a metaphor and for months or sometimes years I'll exhaust all of my emotional reaction to this issue by making it enormous on the page.

All human beings search for either reasons to be good, or excuses to be bad.

I don't remember the hotel rooms or the airports but I always remember the events.

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.