The problem with growing up is that once you're grown up, the people who aren't grown up aren't fun anymore.
I'm a semi-failed writer, but I'm a capital-F Failed musician.
Hughes' debut novel, At Dawn, follows a former All-American wrestler, and is there any better metaphor for contemporary American life? We're all wrestling, tussling with the economy, no jobs, doing the best we can. Hughes doesn't flinch from the tough existential questions. He embraces them.
No matter what we've done, no matter the disappointments and sullied blunders, today is the opportunity to do right by ourselves.
I don't think escaping is necessarily a problem, but we can get addicted to almost anything. If you're craving being in this other reality and you don't want to participate in your own reality, those are the times we have to start asking ourselves difficult questions.
Memoirs need confusion. It's the thing every human has in common. We are magnificently confused.
My musical sensibilities were formed around punk rock, that quintessential dilution of an art that's both ugly and lovely at the same time.
My new year's resolution: Never be afraid to be kicked in the teeth. Let the blood and the bruises define your legacy.
Write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
One of the many problems with the American left has been its image as something rather too solemn, mirthless, herbivorous, dull, monochrome, righteous, and boring.
One of my first experiences with the space program was with the memorial that was built for the Challenger. When I was in 7th grade my entire class spent the entire school year preparing to launch a spaceship all together. We all had our different jobs that we had to learn how to do, we learned the math that you needed, we learned the practical skills that you needed, and I thought that was really cool. So I think that if you can take a tragedy and find the gold in it and turn it into something positive, that's great.