Now begin in the middle, and later learn the beginning; the end will take care of itself.

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

You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.

I think love and sex are separate and only vaguely similar. Like the word bear and the word bare. You can get in trouble mistaking one for the other.

I think art must be tough! I think art has to be hard. I don't think it should be easy. I think it should take foot-pounds of energy to produce that art, otherwise we would have more mediocre writers, and we don't have room for any more mediocrity in the world. There's already enough of it being visited on us night and day through the Internet, and through television, and through politics.

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

I made as many mistakes as anybody else. I sound as if I'm an egomaniac, and I suppose in some ways I'm filled with hubris because I know how good I am at certain things. But other things, I can't do at all. I can't draw.