This is what I think: If you had the nerve to live what you lived, you should have the nerve to write it.

A waft of sweet hash drifted by, and I wanted to float after it like Wimpy levitating at the scent of a hamburger.

I need - and occasionally love - to write for the same reasons I always did: hard as writing is, it's generally easier than life.

All of us, at some point in life, choose our cliché.

It's not like I was an alkie or anything. Alcohol is for cleaning needles

I don't really know how to do much else besides write.

I kept getting high to kill my shame at the fact that I kept getting high.

To me, God is like this happy bus driver.

In my family, misery didn't just love company, it wanted hostages.

I've always wanted to be a guy with a rec room.

You need an entire drama to construct your life around to avoid living it.

The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's smile at someone and receive a smile in return are to me continual spiritual exercises.

I don't drink now, I'm too busy. It sucks.

To be a leader, you have got to lead human beings with affection

[Donald Trump's inauguration] will be the first one that I miss since I've been in Congress. You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right.

I would not go so far as to say that the French trade unions attached greater importance to the struggle for peace than the others did; but they certainly seemed to take it more to heart.

Long ago I left heroics to the heroes

You can insure yourself up to your eyeballs, but if you don't take risks, what's the point? You have to enjoy life.

For the self-development of men and women it is absolutely necessary that they should be alone with themselves at least one hour each day-to get the blessings of solitude.

Tis in ourselves that we are thus, or thus.