America loves to pray, God knows. America prays and prays and prays, it is the land of unchained prayer, and all this ceremonial praying is hard on Billy.

It is sort of weird being honored for the worst day of your life.

There was no such thing as perfection in this world, only moments of such extreme transparency that you forgot yourself, a holy mercy if there ever was one.

If you could figure out how to live with family then you'd gone a long way toward finding your peace.

As if sorrow is the true reality? Without ever putting his mind to it, he's come to believe that loss is the standard trajectory.

Americans are children who must go somewhere else to grow up, and sometimes die.

I like to kill my enemies and listen to the lamentations of their women

I think the hard work of writing is just how long a book is terrible before it's good.

Growing up, I was sort of a tomboy. I was the one skating with the boys.

You must learn to control your money, or to the permanent deprivation control you

Depending on what I'm working on, I come to the writing desk with entirely different mindsets. When I change form one to the other, it's as if another writer is on the scene.

When one is an artist, what else can he be?

And that Aha! that you get when you see an artwork that really hits you is, 'I am that.' I am the very radiance of energy that is talking to me through this painting.

Friends: how many have 'em? How long before they split like atoms? Don't ask me, but what I do stand behind Is someone havin' your back seems hard to find.

I don't just try to score. The challenge is elevating my teammates to be able to win a championship.

Without literature my life would be miserable.

He's as weird as snake's suspenders but sweet as a stolen kiss, too.