We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images.

Find a pile of gold and sit on it.

Talking, talking. Spinning a web of words, pale walls of dreams, between myself and all I see.

i understand that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears. i understood that, finally and absolutely, i alone exist. all the rest, i saw, is merely what pushes me, or what i push against, blindly - as blindly as all that is not myself pushes back. i create the whole universe, blink by blink.

A common and usually unfortunate answer is “Write about what you know.” Nothing can be more limiting to the imagination, nothing is quicker to turn on the psyche's censoring devices and distortion systems, than trying to write truthfully.

Self pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.

Our noblest hopes grow teeth and pursue us like tigers.