For my money, there are no more fascinating, hard-working, vulnerable creatures on earth than writers. Every day, they lay their souls out there for public approval or rejection.

you couldn't talk yourself into love any more than you could talk yourelf out of it.

Yet the past has a will of its own, and you must learn to entertain it, because it will visit, invited or not.

Poverty made me feel weak, as if I were coming down with an awful, debilitating, communicable disease - the disease of being without money. Instead of going to the hospital, you went to the poor farm. The difference was, you never got well at the poor farm.

If you don't kill yourself right away when something terrible happens ... if you go on living, you become a different person.

Chemistry's a tricky thing, and if I'm not feeling it, I'm not gonna pretend.

Part of the business of being an artist is abetting talent. The best do that.