Another thing that's good about writing to describe a situation or a state of consciousness is that you can finally get it right. That was my intention, and that's always interesting.

we still have the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building and the Woolworth Building, but it just seems like part of the nature of New York, that it's always shifting.

Things always change, and New York teaches you that.

The purpose of rock n' roll is to convince girls to pay money to get close to you.

In fact I thought life was pretty much a losing proposition, and I didn't mind saying so.

I'm usually alone or asleep, at home.

I do everything halfway, a thing of which adults disapprove, but things done halfway are deceptive, and in a class of their own – for instance, the sun is really twice its size.

A memoir takes some particular threads, some incidents, some experience from a person's life and gives an account of it.

I shake my head and the tiny acrobats fall like spangles, like the cool rain on another planet, down to the inside of my feet.

I felt just overwhelmed by input: the Vietnam War and the collapse of the '60s and the proliferation of media' it just felt like everything was too much to handle and you just tuned out.

A memoir is a book about some particular thread or theme or moment in a person's life, whereas an autobiography is the entire life.

The map is not the territory.

In the progressive growth of astronomy, physics or mechanical science was developed, and when this had been, to a certain degree, successfully cultivated, it gave birth to the science of chemistry.

We participate in the creation of the world by decreating ourselves.

I have to erase my Google search histories, because they always lead to an obituary.

I'm terrified of losing my voice.

Every man has his price. This is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing.

To disappear your complete self into a character is quite difficult. I've tried it 85 times, and I've succeeded two or three times.

Tropical rainforests [are] the only place you can go nowadays and not get ‘friended.’

I cringe every time republican senators say, "our Democratic friends." Chuck Schumer, if he is your friend, it's a problem. I mean, it shouldn't be, but we know it is.

I love to compete. That's the essence of who I am.