Nobody knows what's in him until he tries to pull it out. If there's nothing, or very little, the shock can kill a man.

Everyone my age had written a novel and I was still having difficulty writing a paragraph.

As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.

I believe that basically you write for two people; yourself to try to make it absolutely perfect; or if not that then wonderful. Then you write for who you love whether she can read or write or not and whether she is alive or dead.

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with that there is

I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.

I felt the death loneliness that comes at the end of every day that is wasted in your life.