The Bible is big in my teaching. It's a wonder the ACLU didn't get after me pretty good. I really kept thinking they would. I took my boys to church. I took my football team to church. I only did it two times a year. Before I signed a kid, I'd write ...
If you're married, and you have a wife, and you really love your wife, is it good enough to only say to your wife 'I love her' the day you get married? Or should you tell her every single day when you wake up and every opportunity? And that's how I f...
I don't know if you know you're funny, but you enjoy being funny. I know I'm funny because people tell me I am, but when I watch myself, it doesn't make me laugh. Does that make sense? Because I know the jokes, and to me, I feel like I'm pulling the ...
I have really fond memories of growing up in Chicago, and I always love going back. I still have a lot of really good friends from high school that I go to dinner with. It's kind of become a tradition when I go out there to do a show to give a few fr...
My hair is God's aura. Everything went up when I got home from the penitentiary. One night I went to lie down next to my wife, and my hair started popping and uncurling all on its own - ping, ping, ping, ping! I knew that it was God telling me to sta...
We only had a couple of ways for people to hate us on 'X-Files,' including still writing actual fan letters. Now people can instantly tell you, 'Oh my God, I love you,' or 'Oh my God, you are the worst person on the planet.' They actually had to hate...
Isn't it awkward how some people say that they are 'real' because they are violently cold hearted and always engaging in all kinds of negative behaviors? But if you ask me, I would tell you that a 'real person' is someone who treats others the same w...
Flat outstretched upon a mound Of earth I lie; I press my ear Against its surface and I hear Far off and deep, the measured sound Of heart that beats within the ground. And with it pounds in harmony The swift, familiar heart in me. They pulse as one,...
I wanted to become a director before I wanted to become a writer. When I was 10, people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said, 'Walt Disney.' I wanted to make films. But I wasn't offered a camera. I was offered language. So I st...
The explanations for the things we do in life are many and complex. Supposedly mature adults should live by logic, listen to their reason. Think things out before they act. But maybe they never heard what Dr. London told me one, Freud said that for t...
Destiny. To believe that a life is meant for a single purpose, one must also believe in a common fate. Father to daughter, brother to sister, mother to child. Blood ties can be as unyielding as they are eternal. But it is our bonds of choice that tru...
When at a crossroads, my father was fond of saying “go with your gut.” “Intuition,” he said, “always has our best interests at heart.” It is a voice that can tell us who is friend and who is foe…Which ones to hold at arm’s length…An...
I changed my writing style deliberately. My first two novels were written in a very self-consciously literary way. After I embraced gay subject matter, which was then new, I didn't want to stand in its way. I wanted to make the style as transparent a...
Bono told me how to dance in high heels and he also told me about U2's Glastonbury performance and how everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong, including him ripping his trousers on stage. I think he was lunging and his trousers rip...
Everybody is important, have some element is peculiarity and a story to tell. Also not only that, a story to learn from. We don't just gain from individuals of impact yet the poor as well. Don't only learn from people of influence only, but the poor ...
There isn't a thing I can't do now that I didn't do when I was twenty-one...which gives you an idea of how pathetic I was when I was twenty-one. (That's a lie, but I might as well tell you something right here at the beginning of the book. Anytime I ...
I am a personal optimist but a skeptic about all else. What may sound to some like anger is really nothing more than sympathetic contempt. I view my species with a combination of wonder and pity, and I root for its destruction. And please don't confu...
You didn't have to come after me." "Yes, I did," he said. "You're far too inexperienced to protect yourself in a hostile situation without me." "That's sweet. Maybe I'll forgive you." "Forgive me? Fro what?" "Fro telling me to shut up." His eyes narr...
It should be a privilege to be able to say "I love you" to someone. It shouldn't be something people say just because they feel like it. A privilege that is earned. They say you have to earn the right to be loved; no, love is unconditional, if you lo...
I'm afraid that the act of writing is so scary and anxiety-filled that I never laugh at all. In fact, when people tell me that such and such a scene or story is comical, I tend to gape. I did not intend comedy - ever, as far as I know. It's probably ...
Once I was in a cafe in Portland and the woman at the next table and I began chatting and in the course of our conversation she strongly recommend I visit this web site called 'The Rumpus' so I could read this advice column called 'Dear Sugar.' It wa...
