In these days of widespread illiteracy, functional illiteracy... anything that keeps people stupid is a felony.

I usually say I write for the smartest, cleverest, wittiest audience I know, and that's me.

The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.

You must never be afraid to go there.

I know that pain is the most important thing in the universes. Greater than survival, greater than love, greater even than the beauty it brings about. For without pain, there can be no pleasure. Without sadness, there can be no happiness. Without misery there can be no beauty. And without these, life is endless, hopeless, doomed and damned. Adult. You have become adult.

I am responsible for myself. I am exactly who I eventually wanted myself to be, I guess, without consciously knowing what I wanted me to be.

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