Dreams? If only they had been! But I don't need dreams, Doctor, that's why I hardly have them—because I have this life instead. With me it all happens in broad daylight!

Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing.

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

I am the Raskolnikov of jerking off – the sticky evidence is everywhere!

Like all enjoyable things, you see, it has unenjoyable parts to it.

A writer has to be driven crazy to help him to see. A writer needs his poisons.

Nothing has a more sinister effect on art than the artist's desire to prove that he's good. The terrible temptation of idealism! You must achieve mastery over your idealism, over your virtue as well as over your vice, aesthetic mastery over everything that drives you to write in the first place - your outrage, your politics, your grief, your love!