Addicts, as a group, generally score far above average o intelligence tests. Why? You tell me. I guess maybe we're smart enough to have figured out how shitty things are and we decide addiction is the only way to deal with it.

The calm. If there is God or something Higher for me it is this. The calm. If there is something that will hold me when I need to hold it is this the calm. There is no anger, no rage, no Fury. There is no want, no need, no desire. There is no hatred no shame no regret. There is no grief, no sadness, no depression. There is no fear. Absolutely no fear. When one lives without fear, one cannot be broken. When one lives with fear one is broken before one begins to live.

Not everyone who works hard makes their dream come true. You need luck and hard work and being in the right place at the right time but I still very much believe it's possible.

One of the beautiful and terrible things about America is you can go there and still be whatever you want, if you bust your ass and you have some luck.

You don't have to follow anybody's conventions.

Being an unpublished novelist has about as much social acceptability as being a shopping bag lady.

I think men who can cry are strong men