When you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both, it's health. If everything is simply jake, then you're frightened of death

Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.

The purpose of writing is to make your mother and father drop dead with shame.

If you're going to love somebody, love somebody who needs it.

Dear Mr Skully, I have caught my neck in a mangle and will be indisposed for eternity. Yours in death S.D.

And no. I must not go on thinking. For the pain will never go away. You just go on and live. In the dust of desertion. Still falling where last I loved.

The best book of the year, Grobel's writing is quite marvelous. The Hustons reads vividly, just like one of John Huston's great films.