A waft of sweet hash drifted by, and I wanted to float after it like Wimpy levitating at the scent of a hamburger.

You may think you don't want to throw your life away for mere fleeting euphoria. But, once you get a taste, it doesn't feel so mere. From then on the planet becomes a waiting room. The rest of your life devolves to no more than the time between highs.

I think it's just too kinda juicy and compelling to imagine people in their private lives, but then half the time people's private lives are just so much more bizarre and Ted Haggard-like than you could ever imagine. It's almost hard to write fiction anymore.

At 17, all I wanted was to be a famous junky. Like all my heroes.

This is, I believe, what happens when people take their own lives. They're not killing themselves, they're killing the world. Either to spare it pain or to cause it some, depending.

I need - and occasionally love - to write for the same reasons I always did: hard as writing is, it's generally easier than life.

In my family, misery didn't just love company, it wanted hostages.