Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

Every scar in my face is worth it.

Boxing is about being hit rather more than it is about hitting, just as it is about feeling pain, if not devastating psychological paralysis, more than it is about winning.

I work very slowly. It's like building a ladder, where you're building your own ladder rung by rung, and you're climbing the ladder. It's not the best way to build a ladder, but I don't know any other way.

I have so many favorite writers, it's very hard to select a few... of classic writers, I have always admired Emily Dickinson and Henry David Thoreau.

That's how a thing starts out real then ends up just an idea.

A writer’s life is in his work, and that is the place to find him.