When a novel comes, it's a grace. Something in the cosmos has forgiven you long enough so that you can start.

Obsession is the single most wasteful human activity, because with an obsession you keep coming back and back and back to the same question and never get an answer.

The condition that is most disagreeable in your life becomes the most useful one. You know, I feel the same way about the U.S. Army. It was absolutely the worst experience of my life, and it was probably the single most valuable experience.

One thing I've learned in all these years is not to make love when you really don't feel it; there's probably nothing worse you can do to yourself than that.

Culture is worth a little risk.

Every one of my books had killed me a little more.

Crude thoughts and fierce forces are my state. I do not know who I am. Nor what I was. I cannot hear a sound. Pain is near that will be like no pain felt before.