I knew I wanted to be a writer and I knew if I had a wife and family, I would neglect something, and I was afraid it wouldn't be the writing.

We wait till now? Now, when we're old men, we get to be brave?

He told us that most of us would die violently, and those who did not would be brought down to the level of beasts.

"What for?" I said. "What for, Tante Lou? He treated me the same way he treated her. He wants me to feel guilty, just as he wants her to feel guilty. Well, I'm not feeling guilty, Tante Lou. I didn't put him there. I do everything I know how to do to keep people like him from going there. He's not going to make me feel guilty."

Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.

I suppose I started writing seriously at 16 years old. I thought I wrote a novel at 16 and sent it to New York! They sent it back because it wasn't novel.

...my heart may have been in it but my soul was not.