In fiction, when you paint yourself into a corner, you can write a pair of suction cups onto the bottoms of your shoes and walk up the wall and out the skylight and see the sun breaking through the clouds. In nonfiction, you don’t have that luxury.
Don’t confuse symmetry with balance.
Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence.
I went to a large consolidated school in Appalachia. And I wrote the story when I was in the second grade and I took it up to the third floor to the school newspaper office that was written and edited by juniors and seniors.
The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind.
It was autumn, the springtime of death.
In Seattle, I soon found that my radical ideas and aesthetic explorations – ideas and explorations that in Richmond, Virginia, might have gotten me stoned to death with hush puppies – were not only accepted but occasionally applauded.
And it rained a screaming. And it rained a rawness. And it rained a plasma. And it rained a disorder.
To an artist a metaphor is as real as a dollar.
I rather like the smell of absurdity in the morning.
A lot of my work comes from what in Asia is called the ‘mind of wonder.’ There is not a lot of ‘mind of wonder’ writing in contemporary Western literature. I think that’s what appeals to the readers who are my fans.
Self-esteem is for sissies. Accept that you’re a pimple and try to keep a lively sense of humor about it. That way lies grace – and maybe even glory.
The only question is how to make love stay.
The most useful thing about art is it’s uselessness.
Normality is the Great Neurosis of civilization.
We are seldom as limited as we think we are.
It’s personal freedom, not hundred dollar bills that lights the soul’s cigar.
Never be afraid to love, not even when there’s a chance you’re not being loved in return.
You are an ignorant schoolgirl. You think civilization is a good thing.
Western civilization was declining too fast for comfort, but too slowly to be very exciting.