Have an objective to give your bender a theme. For instance, stalking and killing a wild pig with a bowie knife.

When you write for a living and you can't do anything else, you know that sooner or later that the deadline is going to come screaming down on you like a goddamn banshee. There's no avoiding it...So one day you just don't appear at the El Adobe bar anymore; you shut the door, paint the windows black, rent an electric typewriter and become the monster you always were - the writer.

Words are such a poor medium when you really want someone to feel something.

I damn well intend to keep on living the way I think I should.

No one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life. But then again, if that’s what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You’ll have lots of company.

It was like falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids.

I may sound a little black, but I'm really pretty well adjusted.