If you have one person you’re influenced by, everyone will say you’re the next whoever. But if you rip off a hundred people, everyone will say you're so original.
Collaborative workshops and writers' peer groups hadn't been invented when I was young. They're a wonderful invention. They put the writer into a community of people all working at the same art, the kind of group musicians and painters and dancers ha...
I suppose men, even myself, are perpetually boys. The sons of parents who provide the staples of what makes up a life— a home, an example of what it means to be human, however fucked up that may be. We are molded by impressions and an example, sing...
The word ‘slavery’ and ‘right’ are contradictory, they cancel each other out. Whether as between one man and another, or between one man and a whole people, it would always be absurd to say: "I hereby make a covenant with you which is wholly ...
Accepting death doesn't mean you won't be devastated when someone you love dies. It means you will be able to focus on your grief, unburdened by bigger existential questions like, "Why do people die?" and "Why is this happening to me?" Death isn't ha...
VIDEO ARCHIVE- INTERVIEW 24768 . GOLD-EYE I like trees… grass… only birds in sky. People walking safe. Family No Creatures. Sleep all night safe. Walk under sun in own place. Grow plants. Build. Be father with mother. Have Children. A place like ...
You cannot “catch” anything unless you think you can, and thinking you can is inviting it to you with your thought. You are also inviting illness if you are listening to people talking about their illness. As you listen, you are giving all your t...
then he jumped.. I owe him so much. I needed him. I still do. But he's gone. He told me once that I shouldn't make people into heroes. He said that heroes didn't exist and that even if they did he wouldn't be one of them. which goes to show. he wasn'...
It's amazing how people can find all the mistakes in the world concerning another person, but look into the mirror every day without making changes within. Stop looking down your nose at others, What does that achieve? We all can make room for improv...
Quiet moments bring you closer to God. It's your silent time within your own private sanctuary. People have so many things to talk about, worry about, think about, without giving themselves peace within. Quiet moments give you access to areas of your...
Sometimes in life you find love so powerful that you get tunnel vision. You only see the one you love, the one you desire. No one or no thing gets in the way of what you feel. A love so strong which makes you feel invincible in this world. And, every...
Forget about being an expert or a professional, and wear your amateurism (your heart, your love) on your sleeve. Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you.
Your partner may have injuries that you can't repair. Your partner may be trapped in a dark room without windows. Your life narrative might bring him more relief than an opiate. Some people make better windows than windows. Your kind words and enligh...
Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, "He fought so hard." And they a...
Sometimes," says a fellow depressive, "I wish I was in a full body cast, with every bone in my body broken. That's how I feel anyway. Then, maybe, people would stop minimising my illness because they can actually see what's wrong with me. They seem t...
You put on a bishop's robe and miter, he pondered, and walk around in that, and people bow and genuflect and like that, and try to kiss your ring, if not your ass, and pretty soon you're a bishop. So to speak. What is identity? he asked himself. Wher...
The book answers questions other people have thought of. I have thought of questions they have not answered. I always thought my questions were wrong questions because no one else asked them. Maybe no one thought of them. Maybe darkness got there fir...
Her body was a prison, her mind was a prison. Her memories were a prison. The people she loved. She couldn't get away from the hurt of them. She could leave Eric, walk out of her apartment, walk forever if she liked, but she couldn't escape what real...
Those were the people who made her something, and without them she was different. She'd held on to them and to that old self tenaciously, though. She clung to it, celebrated it, worshipped it even, instead of constructing a new grown-up life for hers...
Good teachers make it possible for people to change their positions without shame. Even as Ken prayed for my soul, he did it in a way that welcomed me into the church rather than made me a scapegoat of Christian fear or an example of what not to beco...
I had a problem with commitment. I was afraid to proclaim that I had found Jesus, been saved, boarded the boat bound for eternal life. I figured it wasn't something I could announce one week and then a month or two later admit, "Oh yeah, sorry, peopl...
