I would like to travel light on this journey of life, to get rid of the encumbrances I acquire each day. . . . The most difficult thing to let go is my self, that self which, coddled and cozened, becomes smaller as it becomes heavier. I don't understand how and why I come to be only as I lose myself, but I know from long experience that this is so.

You're going to get hurt yourself, and badly, if you take everything so hard.

A truly great work of art breaks beyond the bounds of the period and culture in which it is created, so final judgement on a current book has to be deferred until it can be seen outside this present moment.

Wild nights are my glory!

All forms of art are consciousness expanders, and I am convinced that they will take us further, and more consciously, than drugs.

This wasn't the first time that I'd come close to death, but it was the first time I'd been involved in this part of it, this strange, terrible saying goodbye to someone you've loved.

To create a work of art, great or small, is work, hard work, and work requires discipline and order.