I've certainly learned a great deal from my husband, though, and could never have written a book like Liquor without him and the people he introduces me to and the stories he brings home.

New Orleans cuisine is Creole rather than Cajun.

In the Netherlands I read the first chapter of Exquisite Corpse to an audience that laughed in all the places I thought were funny - an experience I've never had in America!

The night is the hardest time to be alive and 4am knows all my secrets.

You hold onto what you have; you do not give it up easily, even when you know it is poisoning you.

You can only maintain an immensely gothic attitude for so long before either killing yourself or beginning to feel like a poser.

Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness.

I can't heal your pain but I can see it. And you don't have to be lost. Not forever.

Young writers shouldn't be afraid of striving to emulate their favorites. It's a good way to learn, as long as you move on from it and don't publish too many of the results.

Never relinquish your terrors. That's when they catch you.

Ive tried to avoid labels, but they always find you.

See yourself as the perfect creation that you are, but at the same time, recognize with sincere honesty, the areas of your life that are out of balance and get to work to improve and grow.

Sometimes, all it takes to change your life is to change your routine.

Every noble life becomes a revelation of the spirit which the love and joy of mankind cannot let perish from remembrance.

Today's rebel is tomorrow's tyrant.

I was brought up to respect my elders, so now I don't have to respect anybody.

The English language is not always the President's friend.

A river continually fed by a living fountain may as soon end its streams before it come to the ocean, as a stop be put to the course and progress of grace before it issue in glory.

A Pakistan that falls apart, becomes a failed state, would be of extraordinary danger to Afghanistan and to America.

If you want to be successful on the right side, when it comes to money, you have got to know the difference between facts and opinions. You must know numbers. You must know the facts.

I grew up in a Hollywood family with money, so money is not the reason I make music. I'm as Hollywood as it gets. Not internally but externally - that's my bloodline.