When my brother called to inform me, on the morning of May 22, 2003, that our mother Caroline Oates had died suddenly of a stroke, it was a shock from which, in a way, I have yet to recover.

Memory blurs, that's the point. If memory didn't blur you wouldn't have the fool's courage to do things again, again, again, that tear you apart.

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

I never change, I simply become more myself.

How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.

Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.

Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light.

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be

Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!

...Right now there's a pair of bad cops on their way out here to shoot me.""You don't know that.""Yeah, you're right, " Stranahan said. "They're probably just collecting Toys for Tots. Now go.

Nothing seemed as scary as waking up at 40 and realizing that I had not lived a very courageous life.

We're gonna release a studio album probably a year from now and we've got these recordings that we did with Coco Taylor and Johnny Johnson, who was Chuck Berry's piano player.

'Oh! Darling' was a great one of Paul's that he didn't sing too well. I always thought I could have done it better-it was more my style than his. He wrote it, so what the hell, he's going to sing it.

The differences between a competent person and an incompetent person are demonstrated in his environment (surroundings).

Labour is a great leveler of all distinctions.

The ears are the last feature to age.

I really love music but I've always wanted to act.

Beware of the danger signals that flag problems: silence, secretiveness, or sudden outburst.

I want to be seen as a good storyteller. I'm a manipulator as well.