Go where the pleasure is in your writing. Go where the pain is. Write the book you would like to read. Write the book you have been trying to find but have not found. But write. And remember, there are no rules for our profession. Ignore rules. Ignore what I say here if it doesn't help you. Do it your own way. Every writer knows fear and discouragement. Just write.The world is crying for new writing. It is crying for fresh and original voices and new characters and new stories. If you won't write the classics of tomorrow, well, we will not have any.

I'm Gentleman Death in silk and lace, come to put out the candles. The canker in the heart of the rose.

I never changed after that. I sought for nothing in the one great source of change which is humanity. And even in my love and absorption with the beauty of the world, I sought to learn nothing that could be given back to humanity. I drank of the beauty of the world as a vampire drinks. I was satisfied. I was filled to the brim. But I was dead. And I was changeless.

You look good to me, you damnable little devil, good to embrace and good to love.

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

Was it fair to say I didn't know the full state of my soul?

Say what you will to the force that governs the universe. Perhaps we'll call it into being, and it will yet love us as we love it.