I found out about reviews early on. They're mostly written by sad men on bad afternoons. That's probably why I'm less angry than some writers, who are so narcissistic they consider every line of every review, even a thoughtful one, as major treason.

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.

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.

Whoever you are, be that person with all your might. Time goes by faster than we thought. It is a thief so quiet. You must let yourself be loved and you must love, parts of you that never loved must open and love. You must announce yourself in all particulars so you can have yourself.

There was no one, when I was in school, who talked about going in and blowing up students. The teachers were very stern and hateable, but nobody ever mentioned murder.

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.

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.