When you are young, there is so much ahead of you, it's like the Saharan desert. You can't even see across it.

You can pass all the gun legislation you want. None of it will make me feel any more or less safe than I do right at this moment.

The perpetrators of the actual bad stuff that does real and lasting harm to people, like leakage of industrial chemicals into water systems, seem to get not so much as a second glance; the bloviation from media pundits and think tanks creates false problems that waste time and energy debunking.

Airports in major cities, like LAX, are trippy environments. It is at once a national and international gathering of those in transition: The euphoric, emerging from planes, their journey at an end, and the determined, about to depart.

I have to do things for myself, and if those standards are set high, then it's up to me to pass or fail.

I never think of what it's going to be like later. I only think in the present tense. The only time I think backwards is when I have to reissue something.

There's always going to be a need for activism; there's always going to be a need for you and me doing the right thing, being very Lincoln-sonian in looking out for each other.