I don't know how to make the critics happy!

Obviously, I believe that to pursue the American Dream is not only futile but self-destructive because ultimately it destroys everything and everyone involved with it. By definition it must, because it nurtures everything except those things that are important: integrity, ethics, truth, our very heart and soul. Why? The reason is simple: because Life/life is giving, not getting.

I'm focusing on writing the best story I can write. Which means I'm doing everything I can to give the artist within me as much power as possible.

I think the function of suffering is to let me know that my perception is skewed; what I’m doing is judging natural events in such a way that I am creating suffering within myself. For instance, you have pain over certain conditions, certain situations that occur. And if you just say ‘ok, here I am, I’m going to experience the pain,’ you don’t suffer. The resistance and the degree of the resistance to the natural phenomenon of life causes tremendous suffering.

Life was not longer something to endure, but to live.

I think Mozart, like you, is an example of someone who has the gods moving through him, and his religion was creation.

But you cant shut everyone out. I mean you have to have someone to love. . .someone to hold on to. . . someone--