I finish the book so I can see how it's going to end. I write that first sentence, and if it's the right first sentence, it leads to the right second sentence and three years later you have a 500-page manuscript, but it really is like going on a trip, going on a journey. It's a voyage.

Well, Daddy, I used to believe that artists went crazy in the process of creating the beautiful works of art that kept society sane. Nowadays, though, artists make intentionally ugly art that’s only supposed to reflect society rather than inspire it. So I guess we’re all loony together now, loony rats in the shithouse of commercialism.

But do we know how to make love stay?' I can't even think about it. The best I can do is play it day by day.

Hold on to your divine blush, your innate rosy magic, or end up brown. Once you're brown, you'll find out you're blue. As blue as indigo. And you know what that means. Indigo. Indigoing. Indigone.

The only authority I respect is the one that causes butterflies to fly south in fall and north in springtime.

Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialists have known all along that it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek.

I have never ever Googled myself, in fact I think the Christian right prohibits such things.