You discarded most of the lies along the way but held on to the one that said life mattered.

There's a lot of things people think they can't do and then discover they can when they find themselves tight-wired.

I have no plans to get an iPad. I know it will do more things than my Kindle, but I don’t want more things. If I want other stuff - movies, TV shows, weather forecasts, the forthcoming Josh Ritter album - I have my Mac.

We fool ourselves so much we could do it for a living.

For me, that emotional payoff is what it’s all about. I want you to laugh or cry when you read a story...or do both at the same time. I want your heart, in other words. If you want to learn something, go to school.

Every religion lies. Every moral precept is a delusion. Even the stars are a mirage. The truth is darkness, and the only thing that matters is making a statement before one enters it. Cutting the skin of the world and leaving a scar. That's all history is, after all: scar tissue.

A lot of fairy tales are thinly disguised hostility raps against parents. Kids know that they can't make it on their own, that if they were left alone, they would die.