One paradox of professional writing is that books written solely for money and/or acclaim will almost never be good enough to garner either.

I knew my limitations and the limitations of the courts I played on, and adjusted thusly. I was at my best in bad conditions.

We will, of course, without hesitation use art to parody, ridicule, debunk, or criticize ideologies.

Truly decent, innocent people can be taxing to be around.

There's a kind of Ah-ha! Somebody at least for a moment feels about something or sees something the way that I do. It doesn't happen all the time. It's these brief flashes or flames, but I get that sometimes. I feel unalone—intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. I feel human and unalone and that I'm in a deep, significant conversation with another consciousness in fiction and poetry in a way that I don't with other art.

Quentin Tarantino is interested in watching somebody's ear getting cut off; David Lynch is interested in the ear.

life's endless war against the self you cannot live without.