I felt a tremendous distance between myself and everything real.

I find that by putting things in writing I can understand them and see them a little more objectively. ... For words are merely tools and if you use the right ones you can actually put even your life in order, if you don't lie to yourself and use the wrong words.

Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it.

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.

There are many harsh lessons to be learned from the gambling experience, but the harshest one of all is the difference between having Fun and being Smart.

Every deadline was a crisis … No doubt it has something to do with a deep-seated personality defect, or maybe a kink in whatever blood vessel leads into the pineal gland … On the other hand, it might easily be something as simple and basically perverse as whatever instinct it is that causes a jackrabbit to wait until the last possible second to dart across the road in front of a speeding car.

It was a maddening image and the only way to whip it was to hang on until dusk and banish the ghosts with rum.