I closed my own jazz bar so I could be a man who can write novels as I like. I was pleased about that. This pleasure was connected to the pleasure of writing.

There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.

Among the many values in life, I appreciate freedom most.

Writers have to keep on writing if they want to mature, like caterpillars endlessly chewing on leaves.

I've never met a girl who thinks like you." "A lot of people tell me that," she said, digging at a cuticle. "But it's the only way I know how to think. Seriously. I'm just telling you what I believe. It's never crossed my mind that my way of thinking is different from other people's. I'm not trying to be different. But when I speak out honestly, everybody thinks I'm kidding or playacting. When that happens, I feel like everything is such a pain!

Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations. Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase. From snails to hardware stores to married life. Maybe no one finds it, or even misses it, but fairness is like love. What is given has nothing to do with what we seek.

I go by the gut. I might not appear to have any talent but I've got plenty of gut instinct.