Most all of the writers I admired when I was in my teens and twenties died young. Fitzgerald lived the longest. He was 44. Dylan Thomas was 39. And then once you're approaching 40, you suddenly think, "Well, maybe I would like to live longer than Fitzgerald or Thomas."

There is a shabby nobility in failing all by yourself.

I envy those writers who outline their novels, who know where they're going. But I find writing is a process of discovery.

I don't want to have my life fall apart for my work.

The only thing worse for smoking than drinking is quitting drinking. Because then it's the only thing you can do.

It's the cynics who never get married.

Everything becomes symbol and irony when you've been betrayed