I’ve learned to fall like the BJJ player, to protect the body through controlling the distribution of force by slapping the mat with hands open. With hands open. Hands open. Open. O Pen.

The words he said, too, must be human enough to bleed.

A poet could kill the dead.

Poets, like fighters, both reap the benefits of roadwork.

Stories do not change, only the lives they live in do.

Like forearm veins, my interests spread in different directions and eventually led to the hands, to writing.

If pain is a pot of boiling water, humor can be the rising steam.

It’s cool when fashion recycles itself, it’s not cool when sustainable living does because it means there was (and is as I write) a period of absolute and possibly irreversible destruction.

Fights begin and end with handshakes.

How can I stand before you in silent symbols with open palms?

The more inhuman we became the more we understood each other as humans.

Writing is not a hobby. It's the only way I get to shut up the demons in my head.

Excessively sweet praise can rot your ego over time.

I was so thin I could slice bread with my shoulderblades, only I seldom had bread

My modus operandi has always been understatement and that just doesn't really work in pop.

I was trying to find a new home in the world.

Either the distances betweem the distant quarters of the globe are diminished, or you have extended the powers of human action.

People that marry can never part, but must go and keep house together. People that dance only stand opposite each other in a long room for half an hour.

I just think it's ridiculous to be dogmatic and be caught in the past. You have to be open, aware, nimble and flexible about changes in the world.

This is the blood's wild tree that grows the intricate and folded rose

Each coming together of man and wife, even if they have been mated for many years, should be a fresh adventure; each winning should necessitate a fresh wooing.