Perhaps it is our fear, that in the silence between stories, in the moment of falling, the fear that we will never find the one story which will save us, and so we lunge for another, and we feel safe again, if only for as long as we are telling it.

We got him to talk to a psych doctor once, the doctor asked if he heard things other people don't. Sure, Paul answered, I hear birds in the morning when everyone's sleeping, I hear trees rustling when no one's around.

If you're going to write about someone's life, you don't just use them for wallpaper. You have to honor and respect that life.

The attention one gets from being a poet isnt great.

I offer Emily half of my hit of acid- Love Saves the Day. It's my second or third time tripping, Emily's first, and she's understandably trepid. Awake all night, at one point I find her touching her reflection in a cruelly lit dorm bathroom, asking if she'll ever be the same. I kiss her then for the first time and whisper, No.

When I was a child, writing was the worst possible choice of a career in my family.

Trinity Park lies directly across from the library, Trinity Church rising like a midieval thought amidst the glass and steel towers.