There's nothing glorious about being a professional. . . . Professionalism probably comes down to being able to work on a bad day.

Since great writers communicate a vision of existence, one can't borrow their methods. The method is married to the vision.

Murder offers the promise of vast relief. It is never unsexual.

Television is coitus interruptus brought into aesthetics.

To know what you want to say is not the best condition for writing a novel. Novels go happiest when you discover something you did not know you knew: an insight into one of your opaque characters, a metaphor that startles you... a truth... that used to elude you.

To be married to a good woman is to live with tender surprise.

The war between being and nothingness is the underlying illness of the twentieth century. Boredom slays more of existence than war.