I can weep pretty easily. I can get tears in my eyes from a beautiful work of art.

Everything we do, I'd imagine, influences everything we will do.

Water can be a symbol of purification, to stand naked before someone a sign of truth, of nothing to hide. - Nick Flynn

I get inspired by my friends, and if a friend is a writer, that is even deeper.

Memoir is actually the most egoless genre, even though it might seem ostensibly so much ego-driven. In order for it to succeed, you have to dissolve the self into these larger universal truths, and explore these deeper mysteries. If it’s purely autobiographical and ego-driven, it’s going to fail.

In my experience, whatever happens clings to us like barnacles on the hull of a ship, slowing us slightly, both uglifying and giving us texture. You can scrape all you want, you can, if you have money, hire someone else to scrape, but the barnacles will come back or at least leave a blemish on the steel.

By the time I'm nine I know the world is a dangerous place. I've heard whispers about razorblades in apples, about Charlie Manson and his family. But no one is offering any clear information.