Record stores can't save your life. But they can give you a better one..

All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. ... But with each passing year, and with each….

...self-consciousness is a man's worst enemy..

You don't ask people with knives in their stomachs what would make them happy; happiness is no longer the point. It's all about survival; it's all ab….

Everyone knows how to talk, and no one knows what to say..

People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them ….

We all spend so much time not saying what we want, because we know we can't have it. And because it sounds ungracious, or ungrateful, or disloyal, or….

I'm a good person. In most ways. But I'm beginning to think that being a good person in most ways doesn't count for anything very much, if you're a b….

We can't be as good as we'd want to, so the question then becomes, how do we cope with our own badness?.

When you get older, it feels like happy memories and sad memories are pretty much the same thing. It is all just emotion in the end. And any of it ca….

For alarmingly large chunks of an average day, I am a moron..

What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do ….

It's no wonder we're all such a mess, is it? We're like Tom Hanks in Big. Little boys and girls trapped in adult bodies and forced to get on with it..

Sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostagic and hopeful all at….

The plain state of being human is dramatic enough for anyone; you don't need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You….

Because music, like color, or a cloud, is neither intelligent nor unintelligent - it just is. The chord, the simplest building block for even the tri….

I lost the plot for a while then. And I lost the subplot, the script, the soundtrack, the intermission, my popcorn, the credits, and the exit sign..

I have less time, less tolerance for bullshit, more interest in good taste, more confidence in my own judgement. The culture with which I surround my….

It's a mystery of human chemistry and I don't understand it, some people, as far as their senses are concerned, just feel like home..

I suddenly had a little epiphany: all the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal..

Even bad times have good things in them to make you feel alive..