The individual's right to pursue his own vision of the best ration of pleasure to pain: utterly sacrosanct.

Good writing isn’t a science. It’s an art, and the horizon is infinite. You can always get better.

My whole life I've been a fraud. I'm not exaggerating. Pretty much all I've ever done all the time is try to create a certain impression of me in other people. Mostly to be liked or admired. It's a little more complicated than that, maybe. But when you come right down to it it's to be liked, loved. Admired, approved of, applauded, whatever. You get the idea.

I'm screaming for help and everybody's acting as if I'm singing Ethel Merman covers.

My chest bumps like a dryer with shoes in it.

Writing fiction takes me out of time. I sit down and the clock will not exist for me for a few hours. That’s probably as close to immortal as we’ll ever get.

I have always tried to avoid talking to pretty girls, because pretty girls have a vicious effect on me in which every part of my brain is shut down except for the part that says unbelievably stupid things and the part that is aware that I am saying unbelievably stupid things.