“Most people in this country are looking for literature that is useful. They feel that just exploring their feelings is good enough - they should be reading about leveraged buy-outs or how to get thin. We live in a culture that is so absolutely, madly focused on commercialism and on creating money and completely turned away from any other kind of creative value. People don't generally turn to poetry unless they're bereaved or have fallen in love. Or in adolescence, when their feelings are very strong and turbulent. I think most of us are dying for lack of spirit in this culture.”

“The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own.”

“Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own. Most people can't do it.”

“The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it”

“I'm supposed to be a christian, but most days I don't feel like I can even presume to say that about myself any longer. I have a lot of mad left over. When I can't sleep, I think about the other people who didn't care how much pain and trouble they caused me. And I think about how good I'd feel if they died.”

“The problem with Christian culture is we think of love as a commodity. We use it like money. [...] If something is doing something for us, offering us something, be it gifts, time, popularity, or what have you, we feel they have value, we feel they are worth something to us. I could see it so clearly, and I could see it in the pages of my life. This was the thing that had smelled so rotten all these years. I used love like money. The church used love like money. With love, we withheld affirmation from the people who did not agree with us, but we lavishly financed the ones who did.”