“Wait untila year from nowwhere you say,“Holy fuck,I can’t believe I was going to kill myself before I etcetera’d…before I went skinny dipping in Tennessee,made my own IPA,tried out for a game show,rode a camel drunk,learned to waltz with clumsy old people,photographed electric jellyfish,built a sailboat from trash,taught someone how to read,ect. Ect. Etc.”The red washingdown the bathtubcan’t change the color of the seaat all.”

“The red washingdown the bathtubcan't change the color of the seaat all.”

“He would say ect. instead of ect., and thus instead of ect., instead of ect. and thus and so forth!”

“How many times have I failed before? How many times have I stood here like this, in front of my own image, in front of my own person, trying to convince him not to be scared, to go on, to get out of this rut? How many times before I finally convince myself, how many private, erasable deaths will I need to die, how may self-murders is it going to take, how many times will I have to destroy myself before I learn, before I understand?”

“Before I published any of my own stories, I read a great many stories by people as passionate about writing as I was, and I learned something from everyone I read -- something most important what I should not try to write.”

“When I am introduced as someone from New Orleans, people sometimes say: "I'm so sorry."New Orleans. I'm so sorry.That's not the way it was before,not the way it's supposed to be. When people find out you're from New Orleans, they're supposed to tell you about how they got drunk there once, or fell in love there, or first heard the music there that changed their lives. At worst people would say: "I've always wanted to go there."But now, it's just: "I'm sorry."Man, that kills me. That just kills me.”