Potential," I said, "doesn't mean a thing. You've got to do it. Almost every baby in a crib has more potential than I have.

there are worse things than being alone but it often takes decades to realize this and most often when you do it's too late and there's nothing worse than too late

I seldom know what I'm going to write when I sit down. There isn't much agony and sweat of the human spirit involved in doing it. The writing's easy, it's the living that is sometimes difficult.

I grow tired of 18th century moralities in a 20th century space-atomic age

Style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing

I went over to see Marina two or three or four times a week. I knew as long as I could see the girl I would be all right…. Soon after, I got a letter from Fay. She and the child were living in a hippie commune in New Mexico. It was a nice place, she said. Marina would be able to breathe there. She enclosed a little drawing the girl had made for me.

If you can't write the next line, well, you're dead. The past doesn't matter.