The minute you start putting words on paper you're eliminating possibilities.

Becoming a parent is actually terrifying. A lot of people have that feeling about their dogs. And if you're the kind of person who's going to have that feeling about a dog you're definitely going to have that about a child.

You have your wonderful memories," people said later, as if memories were solace. Memories are not. Memories are by definition of times past, things gone. Memories are the Westlake uniforms in the closet, the faded and cracked photographs, the invitations to the weddings of the people who are no longer married, the mass cards from the funerals of the people whose faces you no longer remember. Memories are what you no longer want to remember.

People tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember. Writers are always selling somebody out.

Burroughs's voice is hard, derisive, inventive, free, funny, serious, poetic, indelibly American.

To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is, a dissatisfaction with self.

I ... have another cup of coffee with my mother. We get along very well, veterans of a guerrilla war we never understood.