Having a normal person around me made it poingnantly clear to me that I was out of control.

Somewhere in the back of my brain there exists this certainty: The body is no more than a costume, and can be changed at will. That the changing of bodies, like costumes, would make me into a different character, a character who might, finally, be alright.

For a long time I believed the opposite of passion was death. I was wrong. Passion and death are implicit, one in the other. Past the border of a fiery life lies the netherworld. I can trace this road, which took me through places so hot the very air burned the lungs. I did not turn back. I pressed on, and eventually passed over the border, beyond which lies a place that is wordless and cold, so cold that it, like mercury, burns a freezing blue flame.

You can't teach an ear, you can't teach talent, but you can teach people who have those things not to just fly by the seat of their pants.

We were at another funeral party. I wasn’t sure who had died this time, but it was a suicide, and upsetting because it was completely out of season. No on killed themselves in summertime. It was rude.

The fact that you were essentially dead does not register until you begin to come alive.

The joy is an absurd yellow tulip, popping up in my life, contradicting all the evidence that shows it should not be there.