Part of living, part of becoming a wise man or a wise woman, is to get to that point where you can have a friend for whom you are genuinely happy when he or she has a success. That's tough. Very few people get to that point. With writers it's next to impossible. You can't really bless a writer who's as good as yourself.

Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day.

Madness is locked beneath. It goes into tissues, is swallowed by the cells. The cells go mad. Cancer is their flag. Cancer is thegrowth of madness denied.

There are two kinds of brave men: those who are brave by the grace of nature, and those who are brave by an act of will.

The Irish are the only men who know how to cry for the dirty polluted blood of all the world.

Along with all else, Sandman is a comic strip for intellectuals, and I say it's about time.

Psychoanalysis and Zen, in my private psychic geometry, are equal to nicotine. They are anti-existential. Nicotine quarantines one out of existence.