Our myths are so many, our vision so dim, our self-deception so deep and our smugness so gross that scarcely any way now remains of reporting the American Century except from behind the billboards.

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

To literary critics a book is assumed to be guilty until it proves itself innocent.

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.

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

Any writer who knows what he's doing isn't doing very much.

The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D.