There is only one blasphemy, and that is the refusal to experience joy.

Most gay bashers will be wearing what gay people had on four years earlier - only in polyester with a Penney's label.

Have you ever been to a picnic? And someone blows up a balloon, and everyone starts tossing it around, and it's always just about to touch the ground, but someone always gets there just in time to tap it back up? That balloon, that's God, the very best in all of us, the kindness, the heavy petting, Funny Girl! ...Evil bores me. It's just one note. It doesn't sing! Oh, of course life sucks! It always will. So why not make the most of it?

I work sometimes from outlines, which are immediately abandoned. Sometimes, when I'm trying to find the characters, I'll sketch things out a bit. Sometimes, outlines help me aim a little bit, but I tend to find it's usually much more interesting, especially with the first draft, to spew it onto the page. I used to get very nervous that, if I write this first rough draft and I die that night, whoever finds it might think that I thought it was good. For me, it's much more important to get some general shape onto the page and later take all the time I need to refine it, fix it, and rewrite it.

I just saw Titanic, which is a $200 million film about a real-life disaster at sea, but according to Hollywood Logic, none of the actual passengers was interesting enough, so the writer-director had to invent a Romeo and Juliet-style fictional couple to heat up the catastrophe. This seems a tiny bit like giving Anne Frank a wacky best friend, to perk up that attic.

wait," I said. "so you're saying that you proposed to me because I'm a mess and I'm a person and because we need each other, while Rebecca was —— something else? I get it, I follow you, but I'm also thinking, is the bullshit getting a little deep in here?" "Yes, it is. You've caught me. And so fine, I will come clean, and I will tell you the absolutely true and naked reason why I want to marry you and only you, and not Rebecca." "Why?" "Because when I'm with you, I'm the pretty one.

I think people who make checklists are the most miserable and alone because they are looking for the perfect Entenmann's that is delicious and has no calories. Please, you want a brunette with a sense of humor, a doctorate and HIV-negative status? Good luck, honey. Love isn't so frequent that you can put conditions on it.