I'm shocked and surprised by people that are shocked and surprised that certain things in life are made up or not as true as you might believe them t….

[He Stopped Loving Her Today] is all about the experience of being alive and the thought process of consciousness, and then you have these polemical ….

With my stuff, I think I've tried. I've been courted. I don't want to sound like an asshole, but I've been courted to be someone who could sell a lot….

I have no interest in being a trained ballerina. People should dance how they want to dance. I want to be the funky chicken..

There's always tons of crap music people are trying to sell us - [it's] the same way with publishers and galleries..

Everybody is so sure about everything these days. Just look at your horrible Facebook feed on the most recent tragedy that people are commenting on..

The only hope we have are our bodies. We're all trapped in them and we all hate them, and it's this reason why we're comic and not tragic..

I just realized that I never look at a painting and ask, 'Is this painting fictional or non-fictional?' It’s just a painting..

I think maybe it's my personality. People don't like my face..

Everybody is so goddamn sure of themselves, it just makes you realize this is the curse of the modern world..

The things that I have loved have always been those extremes where there has been some kind of apocalypse in the person's life, and they come out uns….

There was a lot of tension between my dad and his mother and brothers. Sometimes when I was over there, I remember thinking, "I don't want to get sho….

We're artists. We cry out to be exploited on some level. Write a dissertation on my work. Write a biography about me..

This [Thelonious Monk: The Life And Times Of An American Original] is another one of those books with the perfect blend of anecdote and analysis. The….

In memoir, can you really tell the truth about yourself? You're not going to write about your little peccadilloes, like, "I like a finger in my ass d….

Fashion costs money, but songs are free. You can write them for free and you can sing them for free and they can infect those around you or the peopl….

Samuel Clemens isn't Mark Twain. Mark Twain is Mark Twain. He doesn't become the thing until he creates himself..

Most book things now (with a few exceptions) are just built around nice, safe books written for nice and safe book club readers. These are usually th….

I think all good art is outsider art..

It's weird. People want you to know that they write. They want you to know they're a musician, rather than making music or making stories. It's the s….

Writing should be like skirts. Long enough to cover what it needs to cover and short enough to maintain interest..