You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don't live the only life you have, you won't live some other life, you won't live any life at all.

The American ideal is, after all, that everyone should be as much alike as possible.

You write in order to change the world ... if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.

It is astonishing that in a country so devoted to the individual, so many people should be afraid to speak.

People don't have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you're dead, when they've killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn't have any character. They weep big, bitter tears - not for you. For themselves, because they've lost their toy.

I will no longer take anyone's word for my experience.

I want to be an honest man and a good writer.