Never lie down with a woman who's got more troubles than you.

... Chicago divided your heart. Leaving you loving the joint for keeps. Yet knowing it never can love you.

Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.

I'm not against sentimentality. I think you need it. I mean, I don't think you get a true picture of people without it in writing... It's a kind of poetry, it's an emotional poetry, and, to bring it back to the literary scene, I don't think anything is true that doesn't have it, that doesn't have poetry in it.

Thinking of Poe, thinking of Mark Twain and Vachel Lindsay, thinking of Jack London and Tom Wolfe, one begins to feel there is almost no way of becoming a creative writer in America without being a loser.

For the masses who do the city's labor also keep the city's heart.

It is strange how fragile this man-creature is.....in one second he's just garbage. Garbage, that's all.