The world is fine. Our place on it is precarious.

I don't really get romance. Bring me fish or moose, not flowers.

Once your writing is out there, you can't control how other people perceive it. All you can do is stand in your truth.

I was born on the same day as Edgar Allan Poe and Dolly Parton: January 19. I am absolutely certain that this affects my writing in some way.

Autumn. Pretty leaves, pumpkin pie and sweaters. Perfect weather for reading. Winter is great but I hate shoveling.

I think we learn slowly as a group, but we learn. The ozone layer is still there.

I find myself moved by social justice issues. I'm not sure where that will lead me. I'm willing to nurture it.

We can be the new brand of self-extincting dinosaurs or we can evolve.

Our ability to turn off empathy for specific kinds of humans and then use faulty logic to justify our beliefs is messily sociopathic.

I don't think anyone's normal.

In general, I'm careful when I'm dealing with subjects of deep cultural importance and write with abandon when I'm dealing with issues of personal dysfunction.

To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow - this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.

I'm harmless. I don't have any ill will or ill thought towards anybody. When people know you're that way, you can say stuff that the creepy guy at your office could never get away with.

The shelf life of molecules is very short. Ninety-eight percent of all the atoms in my body are gone by next year.

A lot of times when people are on campaigns, it can be like a movie set.

I saw leaving college as an opportunity to do something different with my life. I always thought that becoming an academic was going to be my path.

Good poetry is like effective prayer, it feeds the human spirit, it nourishes, it puts us in touch with forces far greater than ourselves

You know how gossip is. It's the toxic waste of small town

I was once thrown out of a mental hospital for depressing the other patients.

Did you bring me a hamburger? Did I-No,Myrnin,I didn't bring you a hamburger.Bizarre.He'd never asked for that before. Coffee? It's late. Doughnuts? No. What good are you then?

Running through airports with pounds of luggage - that's a good workout.