Quotes About Expression

If you write a phrase and think, 'Wow, that's really poetic, that's really pretty, I really nailed it,' you get rid of it [because] you've overdone it.

What you call your personality, you know?—it's not the actual bones, or teeth, something solid. It's more like a flame. A flame can be upright, and a flame can flicker in the wind, a flame can be extinguished so there's no sign of it, like it had never been.

Shit is the tofu of cursing and can be molded to whichever condition the speaker desires.

journal, in my opinion, is a repository of ideas—your brain on the page. A diary, by contrast, is your heart.

It was a father, one hand resting teapot-style on his hip, and the other - what would be the spout - formed into a fist.

I think there is a difference between comic essays and war reporting, and people can tell that.

If you were to throw a lipoma to a dog, he'd swallow it in a single bite, then get that very particular look on his face that translates to Fuck. Was that a tumor? There'd be something to see. Turtles, on the other hand, never change expression and live with fewer regrets

I've outlawed "meds," "bestie," "bucket list," "dysfunctional," "expat," "cab-sav," and the verb "do" when used in a restaurant, as in "I'll do the snails on cinnamon toast.

The Romanians really do lead the world when it comes to cursing. "What have you got for me?" I asked a woman from Transylvania who was now living in Vienna. "Shove your hand up my ass and jerk off my shit," she offered.

I noticed my mother's face assume an expression she reserved for unspeakable horror. I had seen this look only twice before: once when she was caught in the path of a charging, rabid pig and then again when I told her I wanted a peach-colored velveteen blazer with matching slacks.

Here I've given him a good eight inches and a shot at immortality and he'll turn on me the same way he did last year when I asked him to pose for a few nude sketches. Ingrate

You people are...assholes! I mean, what the hell, you can't even applaud for your own teenagers? I'd meant to but figured the team was back in coach.

For you, anything." And as I did as I was instructed, I realized it was no different than playing a wind instrument. There were other musicians behind other curtains, and I swore I could hear them chiming in, the group of us forming God's own horn section. I'm not sure how long I lay there, blissed-out and farting.

Do you have a feel for the guitar? Do you have any idea what this little baby is capable of?" Without waiting for an answer, he climbed up into his chair and began playing "Light My Fire," adding, "This one is for Joan.

One day she'd throw a dish at you, and the next she'd create a mosaic made of the shards.

Happiness is harder to put into words. It's also harder to source...

Late in her life, my mother embraced the word "fuck" but could never quite figure out its place in a sentence.

Out in the world where it's so beautiful and complex and painful that sometimes you just need to sit down and write about it.

awesome," which has replaced "incredible," "good," and even "just OK." Pretty much everything that isn't terrible is awesome in America now.

could it be???? Timothy Speaks, who had so many pierced holes in his ears you could have torn the lobe right off, effortlessly ripped it loose the same way you might separate a stamp from a sheet.

It was as if I'd learned to grieve by watching television:

There's a short circuit between my brain and my tongue, thus "Leave me the fuck alone" comes out as "Well, maybe. Sure. I guess I can see your point." This

My brother politely ma'ams and sirs all strangers but refers to friends and family, his father included, as either "bitch" or "motherfucker.

When I bleat here on page seventeen, do you want me to just bleat or to really let go and 'bleat, bleat'? " I asked. "I feel like 'bleat, bleating,' but if Mother/Destroyer is going to be crawling through the birth canal of concertina wire, I don't want to steal focus, you know what I mean?" He did. That was the scary part, that someone understood me.