I wrote every day. I don't think I could have written Just Kids had I not spent all of the 80s developing my craft as a writer.

People don't realize we have these built-in seven-league boots. The body can go anywhere. It is physically capable of sustaining almost any kind of abuse, or any dream.

I was always trying to pick guys up. I'd ask guys out and stuff like that. I had no pride. I was the biggest lurch at dances, waiting for the ladies' choice. I'd lunge at my prey like a baby wolf.

I've always thrived on the encouragement of others.

Words are just rules and regulations to me.

My mission is to communicate, to wake people up, to give them my energy and accept theirs. We're all in it together, and I respond emotionally as a worker, a mother, an artist, and a human being with a voice. We all have a voice. We have the responsibility to exercise it, to use it.

Should I pursue a path so twisted? Should I crawl defeated and gifted?