Boys, the first drink is a boon, the second is a gamble, the third is poor judgment, and then the rate of descent gets steep

Growing up in a place that has winter, you learn to avoid self-pity. Winter is not a personal experience, everybody else is just as cold as you, so you shouldn't complain about it too much. You learn this as a kid, coming home crying from the cold, and Mother looks down and says, 'It's only a little frostbite. You're okay.' And thus you learn to be okay. What's done is done. Get over it. Drink your coffee. It's not the best you'll ever get but it's good enough.

Bad things don't happen to writers; it's all material.

Don't tear up the page and start over again when you write a bad line-try to write your way out of it. Make mistakes and plunge on. Writing is a means of discovery, always.

A young writer is easily tempted by the allusive and ethereal and ironic and reflective, but the declarative is at the bottom of most good writing.

Your car, comfort though it be, this little den and dining room on wheels, is a prison that deadens your senses, and to feel wholly alive you must go for a walk.

Librarians, Dusty, possess a vast store of politeness. These are people who get asked regularly the dumbest questions on God's green earth. These people tolerate every kind of crank and eccentric and mouth breather there is.