The Insomniac Philosopher

When I can't sleep, I usually write. I couldn't sleep last night, so I just sat at the kitchen table and wrote the following observations:

I don't believe in therapy. I think we should confront our problems head on with resolve. I'm not here suffering so some shrink can take my money and buy a Lexus.

The good thing about being eccentric is your eccentricities are your own.

The highest form of evolution is feeling comfortable in your own skin.

When I was a boy, they told me men don't cry. They told me second place was for losers. They told me monetary success was the American dream. Guess what? They were all wrong.

I've always wanted my words to be read a century or more after I'm dead. I want to achieve immortality that way, that a person living in the future will read my writing and say, "I get what he's saying. It's so universal." Universal truths and literary brilliance resonate 500 years into the future. If you don't believe me, look at Shakespeare.

I'd rather be the weirdo with a pen than the prosperous everyman who sells insurance.

Maybe life is not an arena for achieving an impact on the masses but a chance to collect special memories significant only to you and others. We recollect the strangest, most insignificant things but in the end, they end up having profound meaning. The more I think, the more confident and comfortable I am with myself and the more I realize what it means to be human.

Everything we do we should do with the full measure of being alive. We should seize every opportunity given to us to better ourselves and utilize our talents to the maximum extent of our being. That's what New York City means to me - a workshop for realizing the person we want to be.

Inspiration doesn't knock on your door and politely ask to be let in. It kicks the door down in the middle of the night and drags you out of bed.

There was this eccentric man who kept a journal filled with writings, jottings and musings on life. Everyone called him a madman and a lunatic. I called him a philosopher.

All of your education, background, and social status cannot replace common sense.

Nothing I ever write is original: It's all been done before in other cultures, in other centuries. I'm only making it palpable for my time.

Even the worst poetry has some beauty to it.

There are things we must learn firsthand in life through trial and error: how to love another person, how to forgive others and how to tie our shoes.

A writer reaches down in his gut and pulls out the profound, dusts it off and puts it on display.

I could wall myself up in the citadel of academia and live trapped in an ivory tower, but I don't want to. I'd rather be free among the masses, writing with a wild heart, soaking up humanity.

We have so much to learn and so much to teach.

Political partisans are shallow hacks. They claim only the Republicans or Democrats will save America. I don't think this country can be saved by elephants or donkeys, but by humans cooperating with each other.

We have a tendency in this country to under-think. I call it the death of curiosity. We've stopped wondering and wallow in cynicism and ignorance, which is a shame because there are still many things to be discovered.

Don't lament the time you've wasted. It wasn't a total waste. It brought you to this moment of clarity.

The biggest misconception about writers is they live lonely lives. How can they be lonely when there's a whole world of humanity to inspire them?