Writing a book is like torture that you don't know, but after it's done and there it is. It's a joy like unlike anything else, I think it's the closest that a man can come to knowing what is feels like to have a baby.

Hell came right along with God, hand in hand. The stink of sulfur swirled in the air of the church, fire burned in the aisles, and brimstone rained out of the rafters. From the evangelist's oven mouth spewed images of a place with pitchforks, and devils, and lakes of fire that burned forever. God had fixed a place like that because he loved us so much.

The artist lives in an atmosphere of perpetual failure.

We want to be famous as a writer, as a poet, as a painter, as a politician, as a singer, or what you will. Why? Becauwse we really don't lov what we are doing. If you loved to sing, or to paint, or to write poems - if you really loved it - you would not be concerned with whether you are famous or not. ... Our present education is rotten because it teaches us to love Nothing is allowed to die in a society of storytelling people.

I believe some people are just too damn smart to write fiction.

I think all of us are looking for that which does not admit of bullshit . . . If you tell me you can bench press 450, hell, we'll load up the bar and put you under it. Either you can do it or you can't do it-you can't bullshit. Ultimately, sports are just about as close to what one would call the truth as it is possible to get in this world.

Alcohol whipped me. Alcohol and I had many, many marvelous times together. We laughed, we talked, we danced at the party together; then one day I woke up and the band had gone home and I was lying in the broken glass with a shirt full of puke and I said, 'Hey, man, the ball game's up'.