I never pulled a loaded pistol on anybody, but it got around that I did. It got turned into lore. It's a myth. There's so much bad gun stuff.

Professional Southerners sicken me.

Children will listen to anything elders say to survive, and if you grew up without an elder telling you there was a god, what did your parents say to you?

I hate to be fatalistic about it, but alcoholism, it's just in your genes. We had some of it in my family, and it just got me.

If you are able to explain suffering, a man once told him, you weren't really there.

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.

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