I immersed myself in books and rock 'n' roll, the adolescent salvation.

Why can't I write something that would awake the dead? That pursuit is what burns most deeply.

The best thing is to motivate people to do their own work. I'm not opposed to making money. But I started to play rock 'n' roll to motivate others, to shake things up, wake people up and to let other skinny, pimply marginalized weirdos know they're not alone.

A writer, or any artist, can’t expect to be embraced by the people [but] you just keep doing your work - because you have to, because it’s your calling.

Sometimes you're doing really well, then, after three or four years, everything inexplicably crashes like a house of cards and you have to rebuild it. It's not like you get to a point where you're all right for the rest of your life.

Life is like a roller coaster. It's never going to be perfect - it is going to have perfect moments, and then rough spots, but it's all worth it.

My public life was so demanding that I wasn't doing the things that I deemed the most important.