The first two drinks were always wonderfully liberating. You think better. You're braver, and you'll say anything. If you could just hang in there with two or three, it'd be beautiful. The trouble was I couldn't.

I lost my second marriage because of drinking, and I loved the woman very much. But I thought I needed booze to write. I'm glad I was disabused.

I always intended to be light and open. I misjudged the American audience.

I grew up when people seemed actually to be hurting themselves for their art. Of course, some of it was phony.

I was always kind of florid. And full of rhetoric. That was my flaw. My whole time writing, I've had to work against that because it can be a wrecking posture.

You've got to lie to stay halfway interested in yourself.

You need to see a bit of hell now and then. That, and great joy.