“Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff.”

“Asleep, he looked a lot younger than going-on-seventeen, but I had noticed that Johnny looked younger when he was asleep too, so I figured everyone did. Maybe people are younger when they are asleep.”

“You know a guy a longtime, and I mean really know him, you don't get used to the idea that he's dead just overnight.”

“I have no idea why I write. The old standards are: I like to express my feelings, stretch my imagination, earn money.”

“let's do it for Johnny”

“I really do like listening to stuff that's happened to other people. I guess that's why I like to read.”

“I've been thinking about it, and that poem, that guy that wrote it, he meant you're gold when you're a kid, like green. When you're a kid everything's new, dawn. It's just when you get used to everything that it's day. Like the way you dig sunsets, Pony. That's gold. Keep that way, it's a good way to be.”