And if there is anybody out there who is crazy enough to want to become a writer, I'd say go ahead, spit in the eye of the sun, hit those keys, it's the best madness going, the centuries need help, the species cry for light and gamble and laughter. Give it to them. There are enough words for all of us.

I guess for me Hemingway is a lot like it is for others: he goes down well when we are young.

I am a series of small victories and large defeats and I am as amazed as any other that I have gotten from there to here.

Don't fight your demons. Your demons are here to teach you lessons. Sit down with your demons and have a drink and a chat and learn their names and talk about the burns on their fingers and scratches on their ankles. Some of them are very nice.

for a man of 55 who didn't get laid until he was 23 and not very often until he was 50 I think that I should stay listed via Pacific Telephone until I get as much as the average man has had

This incompleteness is all we have.

there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock