But during all these years I had a vague but persistent desire to return to New Orleans. I never forgot New Orleans. And when we were in tropical places and places of those flowers and trees that grow in Louisiana, I would think of it acutely and I would feel for my home the only glimmer of desire I felt for anything outside my endless pursuit of art.

I'm definitely more influenced by European writers than I am by American writers, there's no doubt about that.

God, why didn't you make us all dogs?

Pride is the parent of destruction; pride eats the mind and the heart and the soul alive.

The worst takes its time to come, and then to pass.

Hell's Bells ringing, my secret music.

There are so many books I mean to read, and things I mean to see.