Words are capable of making experience more vivid, and also of organizing it. They can scare us, and they can comfort us.

All really great artists, Jackson Pollack, John Cage, Beckett or Joyce - you are never indifferent to them.

I felt, that night, on that stage, under that skull, incredibly close to everything in the universe, but also extremely alone. I wondered, for the first time in my life, if life was worth all the work it took to live. What exactly made it worth it? What's so horrible about being dead forever, and not feeling anything, and not even dreaming? What's so great about feeling and dreaming?

If it weren't my life, I wouldn't have believed it.

I wanted to hit him. I wanted to hold him. I wanted to shout myself into his ear.

Choosing leaf or flesh, factory farm or family farm, does not in itself change the world, but teaching ourselves, our children, our local communities, and our nation to choose conscience over ease can.

"My insides don't match up with my outsides." "Do anyone's inside and outsides match up?" "I don't know. I'm only me." "Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and the outside."