I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed but all I could do was to get drunk again.

Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience.

I don’t understand people, never will. It looks like I got to travel pretty much alone.

Unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it. when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was.

Do you hate people? I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.

The centuries are sprinkled with rare magic with divine creatures who help us get past the common and extraordinary ills that beset us

That was the trouble with being a writer, that was the main trouble—leisure time, excessive leisure time. You had to wait around for the buildup until you could write and while you were waiting you went crazy, and while you were going crazy you drank and the more you drank the crazier you got.