The tasks I set out for myself are what I do to beat the perfect pointlessness of life.

When you start to doubt yourself the real world will eat you alive.

Voting is completely important. People in America think democracy is a given. I think of it as an ecosystem, and what gets in the way of it is politicians and apathy.

I wonder if the guy at the gun store would give me a discount on the bullets I'll need if I told him what I was up to.

Nothing moves me more than the history of the United States.

Death metal uses a lot of white face paint and black hair dye to make its point. I quite enjoy this genre for its intensity, extremism and underlying irony: You have to be alive to play it and listen to it.

I have come to the conclusion that it's a waste of time to have too much pride in anything. Perhaps it's good to have a sense of duty, a jealous zeal to protect or improve, but pride ultimately is only that which stands vulnerable to offense and degradation.