Food is good for the nerves and the spirit. Courage comes from the belly – all else is desperation.

Well, people got attatched. Once you cut the umbilical cord they attatched to the other things. Sight, sound, sex, money, mirages, mothers, masturbation, murder, and Monday morning hangovers.

I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of.

Death is nothing, brother, it's life that's hard

I went home each night dizzy and sick. He was murdering me with the sound of his voice.

There were always men looking for jobs in America. There were always all these usable bodies. And I wanted to be a writer. Almost everybody was a writer. Not everybody thought they could be a dentist or an automobile mechanic but everybody knew they could be a writer. Of those fifty guys in the room, probably fifteen of them thought they were writers. Almost everybody used words and could write them down, i.e., almost everybody could be a writer. But most men, fortunately, aren't writers, or even cab drivers, and some men - many men - unfortunately aren't anything.

If you're going to try, go all the way. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs and maybe your mind.