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.

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

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

Literature is the history of the soul.

The point is to strip down, get protestant, then even more naked. Walk over scorched bricks to find your own soul. Your heart a searching dog in the rubble.

I wouldn't buy somebody's album on a dare if they called him a musician's musician. I don't write to be a writer's writer. I don't want to be like the little-magazine writer.

I wake my wife up at 3 a.m. and say, "Listen to this!"