If there is work there is warmth, that when a man has freedom of movement it is enough, for then his blood is hot too

Someday, as an exercise, you might ask a writer to give himself the questions he wants to answer. If you really want a writer's opinions, you have to ask for them. What you read might surprise you.

For your information, a good novel can change the world. Keep that in mind before you attempt to sit down at a typewriter. Never waste time on something you don't believe in yourself.

Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town!

Literary criticism is generally bunk. Nonsense. Usually based on self-serving post-intellectual bullshit.

Well, this is good for me, this is experience, I am here for a reason, these moments run into pages, the seamy side of life.

One night I was sitting on the bed in my hotel room on Buker Hill, down in the middle of Los Angeles. It was an important night in my life, because I had to make a decision about the hotel. Either I paid up or I got out: that was what the note said, the note the landlady had put under my door. A great problem, deserving acute attention. I solved it by turning out the lights and going to bed.