Sometimes I wonder if my heart is like a black hole--it's so dense that there's no room for light, but that doesn't mean it can't still suck me in.

Every day has its great grief or its small anxiety. ... One cloud is dispelled, another forms. There is hardly one day in a hundred of real joy and bright sunshine.

The smell of cigarette smoke in the air in a tavern that changes names often,a bar cursed because of a girl who died of a drug overdose in the basement, we put a few coins in the jukebox;chose __ngel Band_ by Johnny Cash and sat down at the bar,ordered a soda, you wanted a whiskey on the rocks.We saw the coal miner who moved here from West Virginiaknocking back liquor like I drink sweet tea.No one asked why he was so solemn today.It was warm. It was relatively quiet.To anyone else, this place could feel sinister.But to us, it was freedom. It was a hiding place.No one was ever here long enough to know us.And we liked it that way.

At the end of the day your ability to connect with your readers comes down to how you make them feel.

The pretty ones are usually unhappy. They expect everyone to be enamored of their beauty. How can a person be content when their happiness lies in someone else's hands, ready to be crushed at any moment? Ordinary-looking people are far superior, because they are forced to actually work hard to achieve their goals, instead of expecting people to fall all over themselves to help them.

The hardest thing about depression is that it is addictive. It begins to feel uncomfortable not to be depressed. You feel guilty for feeling happy.