David Sheff

The motivations for using drugs, often it's pretty obvious and common: you know, peer pressure. You know, kids are struggling growing up.

Certain people are more likely to use drugs because of whatever it is: They've suffered some trauma in their life. They have risk factors like mental illness, people with learning disabilities, with attention problems.

So many times in the middle of an interview I've had people say, 'Can we go off the record?'

The rest of the world may devour Japanese hardware - from Honda Civics to Sony Walkmans - but Japanese software, such as books, movies and recordings, has had little impact outside Japan. The exception is video games.

Some parents want to be popular, but that's not their job.

This idea that some kids have now in some communities that if they haven't filled out their college resumes by the time they're 12, they are going to fail in life, it's a lot of stress on kids.

Reading Bukowski and Burroughs and Henry Miller doesn't necessarily mean that a kid is going to try to emulate their debauchery to the point that Nic did, but he really was fascinated by it.

I totally believe parents should talk to their kids about drugs. I totally believe that educating them in every way is really important. But on the other hand, I've learned it's not as simple as that.

The war on drugs is a joke. We spend $40 billion a year, and the proof that it's a failure is that any kid can get almost any drug they want in any city in America within half an hour.

One of my dearest friends is alive only because of AA. But it doesn't help a lot of people. And everyone is different, and everyone needs different kinds of treatments.

I was ashamed. My son is a drug addict. What does this mean about me?

I came home one day and Nick was in his bedroom reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' and the tears were just flowing down his cheeks, at the terrible injustice that was being described in that book and the bravery of fighting against it.