Put on all the armor of the Lord. Not just the pretty stuff.

Life for the unwell is discontinuous and unpredictable. Things just come out of nowhere. People try but mostly do a lousy job of taking care of you.

Without writers fooling themselves about what their books might accomplish there would be no books at all.

The most radical, audacious thing to think is that there might be some point to working hard and thinking hard and reading hard and writing hard and trying to be of service

It's regrets that make painful memories. When I was crazy I did everything just right.

Writing was a spiritual exercise for my father, the only thing he really believed in.

Fear that I was very different from everyone else. Fear that deep down inside I was a shallow fraud, that after the revolution or after Jesus came down to straighten everything out, everyone from hippies to hard-hats would unfold and blossom into the beautiful people they were while I would remain a gnarled little wart in the corner, oozing bile and giving off putrid smells.