This moment and this chance, they are the same, and they are mine if I choose them,and I do. I want them. Now and as long as I can have them they are both precious and fleeting and gone in the blink of an eye, don't waste them. A moment and an opportunity and a life, all in the unseen tick of a clock holding me nowhere. My heart is beating. The walls are pale and quiet. I am surviving.

I always wanted to write a book about LA, a big ambitious book. Nobody had ever really done it with LA- treating the city seriously as a major economic and cultural power, as the embodiment of 21st century America.

I wanted to be a writer that had an impact. I wanted, and still I say the same thing, I want to write books that change people's lives, change how we think and live and read and write. I wanna write books that are read in 50 or 100 years.

Love only brought me lonliness and horror.

In Lilly's eyes her beautiful clear water eyes there is what I have sought and never found, wanted and never had, hoped for and never discovered. Love.

If I was gonna write a book that was true, and I was gonna write a book that was honest, then I was gonna have to write about myself in very, very negative ways.

...if you can accept the truth and live with it your heart will be at peace.