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 always figured I myself would never be lucky enough to die, I'd just live on and on in this increasingly dreary spiral.

The art and act of writing - speaking just for myself - involves getting your proverbial ass in the proverbial chair.

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.

How do you write when you're not miserable? The solution, of course, is to make yourself miserable about not writing.

The second time I took acid, I watched myself in the mirror for nine hours. What I realized, when I stared, was that my face looked exactly the same when I cried as when I laughed. After awhile I couldn't tell which I was doing. Relief was just pain inside out.

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