There is in the darkness a unity, if you will, that cannot be achieved in any other environment, a blending of self with what the self perceives, and exquisite mystical experience.

Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.

You write by sitting down and writing. There's no particular time or place—you suit yourself, your nature. How one works, assuming he's disciplined, doesn't matter.

A man is an island in the only sense that matters, not an easy way to be. We live in mystery, a cosmos of separate lonely bodies, men, insects, stars. It is all loneliness and men know it best.

As long as a man stays alive he can't tell what chances will pop up next. But a dead man signs no checks.

Completed, most lives were alike in stages of living-joys, celebrations, crises, illusions, losses, sorrows.

Without heroes, we are all plain people and don't know how far we can go.