Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that - or enhances and prolongs and deepens
and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation - is worth it to me. [It is] impossible for me to imagine having
my life without going to those parties, without having those late nights, without that second bottle.
It's a source of great sadness to me that my father died without having seen me do anything worthwhile. He was constantly having to make excuses for me.
Luckily, I'm setting records without even thinking about it, without having the pressure of having to do as well as the person who came before me. It's more like, "Yeah, I'm doing my thing and what happens, happens," and fortunately those have been some pretty amazing results.
The movies I watch and the music I listen to and the books I read - those are important to me. It's very important to me, and I don't know what I would do without those things.
When I began my pilgrimage I left the Los Angeles area without a cent, having faith that God would provide me with everything I needed. Although I have never asked for anything, God has provided me with everything along the way. Without ever asking for anything I've been supplied.
It gives me confidence to know that what I'm writing has a veracity of its own without me having to invent it. When I'm writing fiction, I must believe it to be true, or I can see no point in it.
I can't even imagine going through life without my relationship with Jesus. So much of it is me relying on Him and me needing Him, not just in those crazy circumstances but in the day-to-day activities.
I think my becoming a writer had much to do with spending a chunk of each year sitting by myself out in a tent without radio, without newspapers, without a whole lot of people to interact with, without anybody having any sort of similar background to me.
Sometimes when I can't communicate that I'm frustrated, I'll just grab my guitar and I can play out that emotion and be able to cope with whatever is going on. So even being able to, like I said, share this gift with so many other people, it's definitely very therapeutic. It helps me just to focus and to be able to kind of get out those emotions that I'm having without reacting in such a way that's not acceptable in society.
Imagine your body replaced by dust and vapor, and having a tingly feeling in your stomach without even having a stomach. Imagine having to concentrate just to keep yourself from dispersing into nothing. I got so angry, a flash of lightning crackled inside me. “Don’t be that way,” Amos chuckled. “It’s only for a few minutes.
Oh sky, without me, do not change, Oh moon, without me, do not shine; Oh earth, without me, do not grow, Oh time, without me, do not go. ...Oh, you cannot go, without me.
Friendship is such an important thing to me, and I feel like the people who I love and help keep me whole - I can't imagine a life without them.
I find that going to bed without my phone or an iPad makes me sleep better and helps me wake up without obsessing over emails. It makes my day better.
Instead I ought to be grateful to Him who never owed me anything for having been so generous to me, rather than think that He deprived me of those things or has taken away from me whatever He did not give me.
There are many things in America worth conserving. But I am one of those conservatives who believes the most important of those things is liberty. Without liberty, without individual freedom, what is left to conserve isn't worth all that much.
One of my great memories of John is from when we were having some argument. I was disagreeing and we were calling each other names. We let it settle for a second and then he lowered his glasses and he said: "It's only me." And then he put his glasses back on again. To me, that was John. Those were the moments when I actually saw him without the facade, the armor, which I loved as well, like anyone else. It was a beautiful suit of armor. But it was wonderful when he let the visor down and you'd just see the John Lennon that he was frightened to reveal to the world.
For me, having characters who are part of a faith then allows me to talk about how that faith either works or fails them without having to attack the institution.