You have to find hope. Hope is such a shape shifter. You tend to look in the rearview mirror for hope, but when it's gone, you have to look forward. You have to get in the van and keep driving on.

As a result of manifest destiny, we gutted our resources.

Can we really be whoever we want to be, now that we’ve collected all that we are?

I love being a struggling artist; it makes me feel very alive.

You have to smile, if you expect anybody to smile back.

I usually write in my underwear, with a space heater running full blast, and three dogs sleeping at me feet.

My neediness is not a hole to be filled but something beneath the skin scratching to get out.

I know I've lost my mind. But I'm not concerned, because it's the first thing I've lost in a long time that actually feels good.

I discovered John Fante when I was 17 years old - strangely, not through Charles Bukowski, but through William Saroyan, who was his drinking buddy.

I really believe in challenging myself, pushing myself to new places.

You have to find hope. Hope is such a shape shifter. You tend to look in the rearview mirror for hope, but when its gone, you have to look forward. You have to get in the van and keep driving on.

I am not superior than anybody, don't say i am, else i won't defend you when you get caught.

Keep people in your life who truly love you, motivate you, and make you happy. If you know people who do none of these things, let them go.

Pop culture is a reflection of social change, not a cause of social change.

I believe that the people, instead of pretty lies, should be told the truth, no matter how ugly it may be. What can we do, destiny hasn't been kind to us; but, with the help of God, we will prevail.

If you have two groups of people and you say one is inferior to the other, which is a lie, then the only way to maintain the lie is through violence or the threat of violence.

Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors.

My father was a man of love. He always loved me to death. He worked hard in the fields, but my father never hit me. Never. I don't ever remember a really cross, unkind word from my father.

Prayer is a ritual! But at the root of prayer is the idea of complete bowing down in submission to the Will of God.

I have a notebook with me all the time, and I begin scribbling a few words. When things are going well, the walk does not get anywhere; I finally just stop and write.

If you have enough breath to complain about anything, you have more than enough reason to give thanks about something.