They say that love is blind, but it's trauma that's blind. Love sees what is.
— Neil Strauss
When I look down at my pale, skinny body, I wonder why any woman would want to sleep next to it, let alone embrace it.
While I am impulsive in many areas of my life, marriage is not one of them.
The trick, when you're flirting, is figuring how to keep a balance between being engaging enough to retain someone's attention and not seeming overly available. So you tease a person a little.
When I was in college, my whole goal was to write for the 'Village Voice,' and I think I was doing that by the time I was twenty-one or twenty, so everything else has kind of been gravy, you know?
Anyone who hates something feels threatened by it. A guy who says he hates feminism (a) doesn't understand or know feminism, and (b) is scared of powerful women. Most attacks come from fear.
A lot of women - not all of them, a lot of them - feel insecure about men being men.
Men are a hundred times worse than you can imagine. We are thinking the worst, shallowest thoughts, all the time.
To me, I think it's awesome to meet your heroes and find out who they are and where they came from and what made them choose to communicate in the form that connected with you.
A lot of guys are very intimidated by an attractive woman, and they dehumanise her because our culture perceives beautiful women as commodities. But I think if you're able walk up to a person and get to know them, and you see their flaws and their impurities, and realise that they're like you, then you can humanise them again.
Many people we consider legends, such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry, remain so scarred by scandals, injustices and regrets from decades earlier that they're barely able to appreciate their accomplishments.
I've seen rock stars agonize over the fact that another artist has far more Facebook 'likes' and Twitter followers than they do.
When it comes to meeting and attracting women, many men are resigned and complacent. We figure some guys were born with that particular power and other guys weren't. I wasn't.
I've begun to look at the world through apocalypse eyes. Our society, which seems so sturdily built out of concrete and custom, is just a temporary resting place, a hotel our civilization checked into a couple hundred years ago and must one day check out of.
A pick-up artist gave me a good piece of advice: the three most important things in a relationship are honesty, trust and respect, and if you don't have those, you don't have love.
I feel like rock stars feel a sense of entitlement, whereas I just feel a sense of good fortune.
I think my love is storytelling. No matter what it is, it's storytelling. And so whatever the medium is, what's right for the story, I enjoy doing it.
There can be people who are feminist, and people who hold the completely opposite view but are still feminists. It seems to me from the outside that there's a lot of people busy fighting each other rather than working toward their goals. It's a shame.
Dating is for tools.
I always wanted to interview Michael Jackson, because I just wanted to humanize him.
You need to be careful with a Bluetooth headset. Because some guys look crazy with them.
Almost everyone who reaches a plateau where he or she is happy and comfortable says it's because of finding balance between work, relaxation, exercise, socialising and family - plus some alone time to do something contemplative, creative, or educational.
Since I was 18, I've been under orders from magazines and newspapers - chiefly The New York Times and Rolling Stone - to step into the lives of musicians, actors, and artists, and somehow find out who they really are underneath the mask they present to the public. But I didn't always succeed.
When the Internet first came into public use, it was hailed as a liberation from conformity, a floating world ruled by passion, creativity, innovation and freedom of information. When it was hijacked first by advertising and then by commerce, it seemed like it had been fully co-opted and brought into line with human greed and ambition.
Never ask a woman if you may kiss her. Instead, learn to read body language.
I've noticed a pattern in stars that start acting out in public. Every one of them felt like they grew up without love.
Growing up, I was watched by my parents and strongly critiqued. Instead of saying they loved me or showing physical attention, they would joke that I had a Roman nose - that it was roamin' all over my face. Teasing was their way of showing love, but then you are young, sometimes you can't tell the difference.
I know that I need honesty from the people I interview. I also know that the truth is more interesting than made up stuff, and also, people don't connect with you if you're not honest.
People don't come out for book events. They want to feel an emotion and be entertained.
Your intention for a book is never the same as the reception.
The good thing is that women have such high expectations of men that it inspires us to live up to them. That's what I learned about male-female relationships.
I think there are just a million interviews in anthologies with famous musicians that are about the music, and they're really boring to read.
A good organizer is key to anyone with a busy social life.
Fame won't make you feel any better about yourself.
Because it's so easy to medicate our need for self-worth by pandering to win followers, 'likes' and view counts, social media have become the metier of choice for many people who might otherwise channel that energy into books, music or art - or even into their own Web ventures.
