I thought I was writing for a fairly hip, intelligent crowd; I just thought there were more of them out there. But they're not. They're not out there waiting. They're not gonna use their intelligence on your book.

The wild stuff is all so overrated. Drinking, you don't feel good all the time. There's a lot of down, a lot of misery.

I wanted very much to be Miles Davis when I was a boy, but without the practice. It just looked like an endless road.

I thought I was writing for a fairly hip, intelligent crowd; I just thought there were more of them out there. But they're not. They're not out there waiting. They're not gonna use their intelligence on your book.

Professional Southerners sicken me.

Randomness I love. And I still love just a holler right in the middle of an ongoing narrative. Pain or joy, ecstasy.

My stories do have plot. They're not just scattered language; they're controlled, toward an end.