“The worst gift I was given is when I got out of rehab that Christmas; a bottle of wine. It was delicious.”

“I think commercialism helps Christmas and I think that the more capitalism we can inject into the Christmas holiday the more spiritual I feel about it ”

“I knew that I had been partially right in the storeroom above the bar on Christmas Day. Whoever I had become had to die.”

“Strange star-like object over Oslo right before Obama arrives. A gift of a golden medal given by a group of wise men... Nah.”

“Every day I ran to that book like it was a bottle of whiskey and crawled inside because it was a world that I had at least some control over, and slowly, in time, it began to take shape.”

“My mother was tickled and I think kind of proud when my father got hit on my an attractive middle-aged Asian lady who hadn't noticed he was with his family. He was certainly pleased about it.”

“School did give me one of the greatest gifts of my life, though. I learned how to read, and for that I remain thankful. I would have died otherwise. As soon as I was able, I read, alone. Under the covers with a flashlight or in my corner of the attic—I sought solace in books. It was from books that I started to get an inkling of the kinds of assholes I was dealing with. I found allies too, in books, characters my age who were going through or had triumphed against the same bullshit.”