I also believe in cigarettes, cholesterol, alcohol, carbon monoxide, masturbation, the Arts Council, nuclear weapons, the Daily Telegraph, and not properly labeling fatal poisons, but above all else, most of all, I believe in the one thing that can come out of people's mouths: vomit.

I was given talent, and if you are given it, it is your obligation to use it.

The more my work improves or broadens or widens, the more surely I tame myself.

The nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous. [...] If you see the present tense, boy do you see it! And boy can you celebrate it.

The strangest thing that human speech and human writing can do is create a metaphor. That is an amazing leap, is it not?

Metaphor is embodied in language.

I haven't had a single moment of terror since they told me [I was dying]. My only regret is to die four pages too soon. If I can finish, then I'm quite happy to go.