Style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing. To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it. To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art.

your letters got sadder. your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all lovers betray. it didn't help. you said you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and the bridge was over the river and you sat on the crying bench every night and wept for the lovers who had hurt and forgotten you.

from the beginning, through the middle years and up to the end: too bad, too bad, too bad.

We’ve died so many times now that we can only wonder why we still care.

I write as a function. Without it I would fall ill and die. It's as much a part of one as the liver or intestine, and just about as glamorous.

mercy, I think, doesn't the human race know anything about mercy?

There's nothing like privacy. You know, I like people. It's nice that they might like my books and all that...but I'm not the book, see? I'm the guy who wrote it, but I don't want them to come up and throw roses on me or anything. I want them to let me breathe.