If your vulnerability has become hardened, it's very, very difficult to be creative.

Our choices are truncated in evil's presence.

The world of psychology and the world of normal life tends to look down on obsession. It's not good for you, and certainly not good for your relationships. It's not good for a lot of things, but it's the only way to make a work of art.

Be careful how you choose your enemy, for you will come to resemble him. The moment you adapt your enemy's methods your enemy has won. The rest is suffering and historical opera.

I require and enforce as non-interrupted a state of living as you can get in America right now without going off to live by yourself in the mountains.

These things - the degree of vulnerability, the degree of skill, the degree of the longing to give - are influx all the time, And to lump all that under the word "creativity" assumes something much more static than it is. That's why an artist may be marvelous in her 20s, and be creating automatic crap in her 40s. A writer may be trivial in his 20s, and be writing incredibly in his 50s, because those things are always in flux.

An artist doesn't depend upon inspiration or have to have it. An artist doesn't depend on mood, certainly not if you're earning your living with it. One of the definitions of a professional is you can do some writing if you have to, even in the most extreme situations.