Memoirs need confusion. It's the thing every human has in common. We are magnificently confused.

My musical sensibilities were formed around punk rock, that quintessential dilution of an art that's both ugly and lovely at the same time.

My father deprived me of any truths about himself. He died without ever letting me know who he truly was. I only knew his facades, basically. And it breaks my heart that he never trusted me enough to tell me the truth.

Today is going to be free of the past. Today, the past can't hurt me.

My job as the novelist is to present the whole case, then the reader gets to render her verdict.

Yes, things happened to me - brutal things - but I'm not going to give them so much clout by dwelling on them, empowering them to haunt my heart years after the events transpired. And no good comes from that. These ghosts don't need us to help them stay alive. If we're after real deal healing, these ghosts must desiccate.

I always joke that every novel is really about the same thing: one person's struggle against society.