I am too far gone to be rehabilitated.

August in sub-Saharan Los Angeles is one of the great and awful tests of one's endurance, sanity and stamina.

If I had to live my life in anticipation of what others thought of me, little would get done.

Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.

I write what I can. I think being able to write like Michael Connelly and have a character that goes from novel to novel, or to dramatize history like Vidal or Ellroy, or have an explosively inventive mind like Bulgakov, would be an incredible thing. I don't have that. I only have what I have.

I beg young people to travel. If you don't have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown. Eat interesting food. Dig some interesting people. Have an adventure. Be careful. Come back and you're going to see your country differently, you're going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You're going to get a sense of what globalization looks like.

I'm disappointed by bands left and right, every day.