There are a lot of people in this country who really like my writing. And a lot of writers respect me. But the so-called establishment? They hate me.

I suspect there will never be a requiem for a dream, simply because it will destroy us before we have the opportunity to mourn it's passing.

I think in a way the great irony or paradox about America is that it makes it so hard for the sensitive person, the artist, the impressionable person, the person whose raison d'etre is to incarnate the creative will, rather than to just make money, and yet that extreme difficulty that the culture poses for us has created some of the best artists in the last hundred years.

There are a lot of people in this country who really like my writing. And a lot of writers respect me. But the so-called establishment? They hate me.

But I knew that someday I was going to die. And just before I died two things would happen; Number 1: I would regret my entire life. Number 2: I would want to live my life over again.

Being an artist doesn’t take much, just everything you got. Which means, of course, that as the process is giving you life, it is also bringing you closer to death. But it’s no big deal. They are one in the same and cannot be avoided or denied. So when I totally embrace this process, this life/death, and abandon myself to it, I transcend all this meaningless gibberish and hang out with the gods. It seems to me that that is worth the price of admission.

...and he just sat back and stared at the tube, almost interested in what was happening, trying to find the ability to believe in that lie so he could believe the one within.