The Oxys filled holes in me I hadn't realized were empty. It was, at least for those first few months, a wonderful way to be disabled. I felt blessed.

When I first started out, I was trying to write stories about nurses and lawyers and a lot of people I didn't know anything about, and they just weren't working.

I'm not sure I would have ever decided to try to write when I was forty-five if I hadn't already gotten that degree [in English].

I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it.

[Degree in English] gave me a little more self-confidence, to know that I'd managed to complete something like that.

I've always been a bit of a pessimist in regard to mankind.

If a person does this for just a couple of years and discovers that it just isn't for him, that's okay. At least he can move on knowing that he gave it his best shot.