McSweeney's as a publishing company is built on a business model that only works when we sell physical books. So we try to put a lot of effort into the design and production of the book-as-object.

We are unusual and tragic and alive.

I met a lot of great people in Saudi Arabia and I'd like to see them again. And I'd love to spend more time in the desert and in the mountains. I felt really at home there.

Dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning French or collecting scarves.

We must do extraordinary things. We have to. It would be absurd not to.

Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let’s not forget this.

Better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than in the middle of some ladder you don’t, right?

Here I am Rock You Like a Hurricane.

Again the greatest use of a human was to be useful. Not to consume, not to watch, but to do something for someone else that improved their life, even for a few minutes.

But everyone disappears, no matter who loves them.

Pain comes at me and I take it, chew it for a few minutes, and spit it back out. It's just not my thing anymore.

In life there is but one career path that will fulfill. The path itself of joy. Make your heart sing. Anything else is a waste of life.

True beauty springs from the heart and dwells in the eyes.

One of the greatest secrets of great leaders

Love, endure, persist... Everything will return to you, innocent fool!

I know I'm always going to be a musician, for the rest of my life. That's for sure. It's about how you balance between being a musician and being a parent, and making it intertwined.

Our political leaders must be honest and forthcoming with data that will allow citizens to use facts and figures to judge for themselves what state Social Security is in.

I am going to attack income inequality and I think I have a pretty good plan to do so. I don't just tell you what I'm against. I tell you what I'm for and how I would do it.

Dance is the music of our body, sound is the rhythm of our feeling, silence is the symphony of our soul.

...hot pink with a star done in rainbow rhinestones on the front. It was god-awful. I bought it.

Whatever your discipline, become a student of excellence in all things. Take every opportunity to observe people who manifest the qualities of mastery.