When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish. I think it's a wonderful way to spend one's life.

The trick is not how much pain you feel--but how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain. Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not to live, excuses, excuses, excuses.

in freeing myself from the romantic dream of finding another man to come along and rescue me, I learned that no one can rescue me except myself.

I write lustily and humorously. It isn't calculated; it's the way I think. I've invented a writing style that expresses who I am.

As a seasoned insomniac, I knew sometimes the way to beat sleeplessness was to outwit it: to pretend you didn't care about sleeping. Then sometimes sleep became piqued, like a rejected lover, and crept up to try to seduce you.

What makes a Man love Death, Fanny? Is it because he hopes to avert his own by watchin' the Deaths of others? Doth he hope to devour Death by devourin' Executions with his Eyes? I'll ne'er understand it, if I live to be eight hundred Years. The Human Beast is more Beast than Human, 'tis true.

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.