Courage can't make you an artist, but without that courage, you won't remain one for long. First is the courage to be alone in the room where you create, and the courage to face that indefinitely, with no one to say if you are any good or not. Then, there is the courage to follow your work wherever it's going to take you. And the courage to fight for your work.

All paths cause pain, so to chose the safe over the audacious will not give you less pain, only less beauty.

When the people clamor to be shielded from reality, when they praise their government for keeping things from them, when they choose to conduct their lives within the limits of whatever fantasy the government supplies, then they are no longer consenting to be governed, they are begging to be ruled.

To be physically astute and psychologically tended, yet morally insulated and conceptually blind--is to be crazy, not healthy.

If I had the money and the drinking capacity, I'd probably live at a roulette table and let my life go to hell.

Good is not the opposite of evil, joy is the opposite of evil.

There are writers I know and respect who are very good about what's outside, and not too hot about what's inside.