We are all advertising, all of the time. If you want to sell your car, what do you do? You clean and polish it and make it the best you can. Some people bake bread when they are trying to sell their house because the smell adds a friendly feeling. Ev...
When people hear that I'm a neuroscientist, they ask me tough questions. 'Will grandpa learn to walk again after his stroke?' 'How can my son overcome his dyslexia?' 'What could have caused my best friend to become schizophrenic?' When I can't give s...
It's almost embarrassing how much support I have. I mean, I always tell people I feel like I'm perfectly set up to have cancer. I have great health insurance, I have a savings account. I have work lined up. I have friends and family. I have the best ...
It was the first time I saw the look on the face of the people I robbed: it was ugly. I was the cause of such ugliness, and the only thing that made me feel was a cruel pleasure which, I thought, was bound to transfigure my own face, to make me respl...
I loved Trevor wholly. In all the good ways that made me feel alive and special and important. But also, in the bad ways. The ways that shut me off from others and left me alone with my pain. The ways that had me keep secrets. I loved Trevor in all t...
Matthew had called her harmless. Harmless. And being with him made Frankie feel squashed into a box - a box where she was expected to be sweet and sensitive (but not oversensitive); a box for young and pretty girls who were not as bright or as powerf...
Lethargy. It's a word I know, because it's in one of my father's favorite expressions. Lethargy breeds lethargy. It means the more you lie around doing nothing, the more you want to lie around doing nothing. Your limbs and your mind feel so heavy tha...
The abyss in which I live hasn't the wit to save itself from savage ignorance, and I now feel assured that I am not in the company of my own species (at least, I I am not, for it I am, then I am ). Dear God, let time pass quickly, and let this end. L...
The highest goal of spirituality is Self-realization, but what does that mean? It means to feel your Self as a living reality in this moment, and there is always only this moment. (10)
He kissed her, and something moved between them, an unspoken bond pulling them together over what they had gone through and what they would face. But those memoires and thoughts faded away until there was nothing but the sensation of his lips on hers...
For the first time, there’s no barrier between us and we make eye contact. All of a sudden, I feel like the character in Raiders of the Lost Ark—the one who watches in horror as the wispy, beautiful angels floating from the Ark of the Covenant mo...
A thing there was that mattered; a thing, wreathed about with chatter, defaced, obscured in her own life, let drop every day in corruption, lies, chatter. This he had preserved. Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling ...
But you have said it too often, Mr. Benedict!" said Mrs. Perumal in an imperious tone that was quite out of character. "And if you continue in this vein, I'm afraid we'll be compelled to cut our visit short. Surely there are other establishments that...
Do you know what I think about crying? I think some people have to learn to do it. But once you learn, once you know how to really cry, there's nothing quite like it. I feel sorry for those who don't know the trick. It's like whistling or singing.
Look, dude, you've sampled your life, mixed those sounds with a funk precedent, and established a sixteen-bar system of government for the entire rhythm nation. Set the Dj up as the executive, the legislative, and judicial branches. I mean, after lis...
That’s what writers and artists and creators do, boy. Listen to the Void and try to hear dead folks’ thoughts. Feel their pain. The pain of living folks too. Finding a muse is just an artist or holy man’s way of getting a foot in the Void Which...
When I said I had no choice about helping you, I meant it. There was no other option because you are the only option. I don't trust anything at the moment. But the one thing I am sure of, the one thing I do trust..." he paused for a fraction of a sec...
I read John Irving's novel 'The World According To Garp' when I was about 14 or 15. It was the first grown-up book that I had read. It is the story of a young man who grows up to be a novelist. I finished it, and I wanted to write a book that made th...
Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it's a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It's only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I always have to feel t...
I think we all, at one time or another, have been to this impossible place, the enchanted land that exists between our dreams and reality. Most of us are only held there for a moment, long enough to know it feels weird; we then choose one or the othe...
I never realized what a big deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head. You just think that things will stay the way they are. You never look up, in a moment that feels like every o...
