People look for morals in fiction because there has always been a confusion between fiction and philosophy.

I believe that writing is an account of the powers of extrication.

It was a splendid summer morning and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong.

I look up the telephone number of Alcoholics Anonymous. Then, my hands shaking, I open the bar and drink the leftover whiskey, gin and vermouth-whatever I can lay my shaking hands on.

For me a page of good prose is where one hears the rain. A page of good prose is when one hears the noise of battle.... A page of good prose seems to me the most serious dialogue that well-informed and intelligent men and women carry on today in their endeavor to make sure that the fires of this planet burn peaceably.

There is a terrible sameness to the euphoria of alcohol and the euphoria of metaphor.

I do not understand the capricious lewdness of the sleeping mind.