My father was always talking about God, and I idolized my father, so I'd spend hours trying to have mental telepathy with God.

I just like living in certain atmospheres. Or I just like people as they are.

I'm from South Jersey: The idea of eating a roll with olive oil and anchovies or some kind of sardine and drinking mint tea definitely comes from reading Paul Bowles.

The only parts I like out of any of those women books is the dirty parts. But I don't think their dirty parts are any good, really.

Sure I destroyed my guitar at every concert, but it was okay, because I'd always get a shiny new one the very next day.

Poetry is a solitary process. One does not write poetry for the masses. Poetry is a self-involved, lofty pursuit. Songs are for the people. When I'm writing a song, I imagine performing it. I imagine giving it. It's a different aspect of communication. It's for the people.

My small torrent of words dissipated into an elaborate sense of expanding and receding. It was my entrance into the radiance of imagination. This process was especially magnified within the fevers of influenza, measles, chickenpox, and mumps. I got them all and with each I was privileged with a new level of awareness. Lying deep within myself, the symmetry of a snowflake spinning above me, intensifying through my lids, I seized a most worthy souvenir, a shard of heaven’s kaleidoscope.