I don't recommend being a bachelor, but it helps if you want to write.

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.

And never, ever, no matter what else you do in your whole life, never sleep with anyone whose troubles are worse than your own.

Never eat in a place called 'Mom's'.

The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man.

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

You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.