No matter how well prepared you are in life, you're gonna fall down a hole, and if you can fix the frayed ends of things, then you're better off.

I volunteered at UCLA's occupational therapy ward, where there are lots of kids with autism and emotional problems. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could not break down and cry at everything, and that I could just help somebody else. The one thing I really remember was that when we would take them out of the hospital for a walk around campus, they would freak out the most when we were waiting for the elevator. I remember the guy at the elevator said to himself, "Transitions are the hardest." And I said to myself, "Transitions are always the hardest."

If I were to imagine myself as an idler wheel inside some big mix of gears, then I would be connected to everything. It's not like there's just me and then nothing.

Everything that happens to me, I experience it really intensely. I feel it very deeply.

Nobody is strong enough to not be influenced.

My heart went cold and only hollow rhythms resounded from within, but then he rose, brilliant as the moon in full and sank in the burrows of my keep, and all my armor, falling down, in a pile at my feet.

What's really good is African drum music.