Anyone can be a fisherman in May.

It is silly not to hope, besides I believe it is a sin." The Old Man and the Sea

There are two kinds of stories, the ones you live and the ones you make up. And nobody knows the difference, and I don't ever tell which is which.

But in the meantime all the life you have or ever will have is today, tonight, tomorrow, today, tonight, tomorrow, over and over again (I hope).

How would that premise stand up if he examined it? That was probably why the Communists were always cracking down on Bohemiansism. When you were drunk or when you committed adultery you recognised your own personal fallability of that so mutable substitute for the apostles' creed, the party line. Down with Bohemianism, the sin of Majakowski.

There is a mystery in all great writing and that mystery does not dissect out. It continues and is always valid.

If a writer stops observing, he is finished.