I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again.

I kept waiting for him to lay bare something more than this pointed unobjectionableness, but all that rose to the surface was more surface

There were many hours when I never quite know how I'd gotten there or why I stayed.

The secret to living in the rush of the world with a minimum of pain is to get as many people as possible to string along with your delusions.

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

Life is just a short period of time in which you are alive.

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!