The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust - not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God.

Working on 'Gossip Girl' was a fantastic experience. It was my first real gig and I'm thankful for it - I got to learn a lot. I'm glad I got to explore getting comfortable in my own shoes in the background on a show like 'Gossip Girl.'

You have people come into your life shockingly and surprisingly. You have losses that you never thought you'd experience. You have rejection and you have learn how to deal with that and how to get up the next day and go on with it.

I understand now that the vulnerability I've always felt is the greatest strength a person can have. You can't experience life without feeling life. What I've learned is that being vulnerable to somebody you love is not a weakness, it's a strength.

Crack had a social logic to it, a specific kind of reasoning that drew from a vast well of common experience for its symbolic resonance. Crack stood for pain and power, chaos and order, the truth behind the lie. Crack was a sociolegal logic grounded in blood.

My father has the proper degrees and framed pictures on the walls, though they're mostly taped over with photos of children, family and friends. Images from the past and present and trips and experiences combined with files on the floor – it's a happening or collage in progress.

Women: One of the most mysterious forces on the planet have had a very profound impact on men since millennia, for they are gifted with an alchemical agent - Discontinuity ~ Any one who encounters their presence gets disconnected with their past, a very life changing experience.

There is no perfect first experience of anything. There is only our ability to find a shard of perfection in the wildly imperfect situations we inevitably find ourselves in [Cram, Cusi, "‘One Life to Live’ and 14 Beautiful Boys to Kiss," Cafe, January 14, 2015].

A friend of mine, the most innocuous dreamer who ever lived, once set a forest on fire to see, as he said, if it would catch as easily as people said. The first ten times the experiment was a failure; but on the eleventh it succeeded all too well.

In the "Brihadaranyaka Upanishad" it is said that it is not the physical person who is attractive, but it is the Atman residing in that person which attracts us. It is that which provides all our delights. Love for someone, the delight experience in that love, both come from the source we call God.