she knew what she wanted and it wasn't / me. / I know more women like that than any / other kind.

When a writer is swayed with his fame and his fortune, you can float him down the river with the turds.

it is all ash and dry leaves and grief gone like an ocean liner.

This is a world where everybody’s gotta do something. Ya know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody’s gotta do something, they gotta be something. You know, a dentist, a glider pilot, a narc, a janitor, a preacher, all that . . . Sometimes I just get tired of thinking of all the things that I don’t wanna do. All the things that I don’t wanna be. Places I don’t wanna go, like India, like getting my teeth cleaned. Save the whale, all that, I don’t understand that . . .

When I'm drinking around people, I tend to get silly or pugnacious or wild, which can cause problems.

Complaint is often the result of an insufficient ability to live within the obvious restrictions of this god damned cage.

And yet women-good women--frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep.