It's so much of what art and creativity are, being able to confront your own demons. If you can do that, you can get through just about everything.

New Yorkers, I figured, just pretended to be unfriendly.

As I sat down, though, I realized that you can get used to certain luxuries that you start to think they're necessities, but when you have to forgo them, you come to see that you don't need them after all. There was a big difference between needing things and wanting things--though a lot of people had trouble telling the two apart--and at the ranch, I could see, we have pretty much everything we'd need but precious little else.

You can't prepare for everything life's going to throw at you. And you can't avoid danger. It's there. The world is a dangerous place, and if you sit around wringing your hands about it, you'll out on all the adventure.

But no matter how much planning you do, one tiny miscalculation, one moment of distraction, can end it all in an instant.

I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.

Life's too short to care about what other people think. Besides, they should accept us for who we are