“Creativity is the opposite of TV.”

“It's not like I ever wanted to wake up and just be a grossly overpaid, self-loathing, can't-look-in-the-mirror-without-gagging TV writer.”

“You may think you don't want to throw your life away for mere fleeting euphoria. But, once you get a taste, it doesn't feel so mere. From then on the planet becomes a waiting room. The rest of your life devolves to no more than the time between highs.”

“When in doubt, though, counter with your own cool.”

“Mostly what I remember is the way things looked sometimes after I'd push down the plunger, sometimes when I got so high so fast I couldn't even take the needle out of my arm. I just sat back, head lolling on my shoulders like a balloon on a string, and everything, walls, carpet, couch cushion, my own hands, broke down to swirling molecules, reassembled as a million other things, and danced before my eyes before arranging themselves once more as reality. The endless cycle, that dance of molecules and their return to something solid, left me as drained as if I'd flown around the sun with veins for wings.”

“I kept getting high to kill my shame at the fact that I kept getting high.”

“This is what I think: If you had the nerve to live what you lived, you should have the nerve to write it.”