Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

A book begins as a private excitement of the mind.

Someone dying asks if there is life after death. Yes, comes the answer, only not yours.

I thought I would lose, so I didn't prepare a speech.

My memories pale as I prevail upon them again and again. They become more and more ghostly. I fear nothing so much as losing them altogether and having only my blank endless mind to live in.

So that individuation may be compared to a pyramid in that it is only achieved by the placement of the top stone… The Jews, Ford said. They ain't like anyone else I know. There goes you theory up shits creek. He smiled.

A writer's life is so hazardous that anything he does is bad for him. Anything that happens to him is bad: failure's bad, success is bad; impoverishment is bad, money is very, very bad. Nothing good can happen... Except the act of writing.