People don't die from the old diseases any more. They die from new ones, but that's Progress, isn't it? Isn't it?

I am not one of these people who instantly takes umbrage when he's corrected or - I love being corrected.

What I try to write about are the darkest things in the soul, the mortal dreads... The closer I get to the burning core of my being, the things which are most painful to me, the better is my work.

The act of writing means you wish to communicate. Whether you're writing a memoir for yourself you put in a drawer, or you write a poem and you send it to a little magazine, or you write for publication, it always means - the form follows function.

People don't die from the old diseases any more. They die from new ones, but that's Progress, isn't it? Isn't it?

You're a writer. And that's something better than being a millionaire. Because it's something holy.

Any writer who pretends to a disaffection for recognition, I think they're being duplicitous.