My spirit life very much depends on my work. My work very much depends on my spirit life. And I pray every day, as part of my own ritual, to a god I believe in, not a god somebody else believes in.

An artist without obsession isn't worth a damn!

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

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

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.

We have to be realistic about the brutal demands a money culture puts on the psyche, and there is a great cost to this in terms of creativity. Look at the state of people at 65. How many of them become creative after having to survive in the money culture?

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.