Nonfiction. I didn’t choose it as much as it chose me. It squatted and birthed me one raw winter day then jerked me up and set me to scribing.

I’ve had a fountain pen surgically implanted in my left index finger to save trouble. My body is tattooed with line upon line of truth, fiction, and a not-always-pleasing mix of the two.

When I pour a bowl of Uncle Sam’s cereal, I never know if I should stand when I eat, salute it first, or simply hum the Star Spangled Banner between mouthfuls.

I speak, I speak, and truth at that. Writers are a curious breed: brooding, fickle, alternately loving and hating their work—and each other. You’re my friend? Don’t pick up that pen!

Without the hard we stay too soft, and heaven is reduced to myths like life. Theology aside, it’s plain to see that God forbids we get too comfortable.

Today I fed him right off the bat, and only checked Facebook twice.

If a book can save—redeem us from the mediocrity of the mundane—surely, there must be a God.

I think that’s why I write—the not knowing and the blasted good feeling I get out of it all.

Writing makes me hard, like a fisherman, and brown from the heat. Tossing out and reeling in is a job for visionaries and those with calloused hands.

In this book, much is metaphorical, not as it seems. It’s written for writing’s sake, as if I were to say, “Let me tell you I’m dying.” Well of course I am. So are you.

This world rubs me raw, scours me smooth like an SOS pad put to a grease-caked skillet. And pain: it stabs and scrapes and pulls me back to earth, my final B&B, that worm-spun cot of cool black sod.

Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.

My recommendation is a compelling urgency for decentralisation. There is a necessity to decentralise the Police. We are under policed.

Many of you wavier by the way you live.

You think that their dying is the worst thing that could happen. Then they stay dead.

As I grew older, I developed a very innate passion for art. I was actually pretty good at it.

She never liked me much, but she sure loved me

An honor prudently declined often returns with increased luster.

Everything goes wrong for a government which is going wrong

I'm not reclusive. I'm out and about.

I have called President Obama, and President Obama called me on various issues. This is part of our regular contacts, there is nothing unusual or extraordinary about it.