Writing turns you into somebody who's always wrong. the illusion that you may get it right someday is the perversity that draws you on. What else could? As pathological phenomena go, it doesn't completely wreck your life.

The book can't compete with the screen. It couldn't compete beginning with the movie screen. It couldn't compete with the television screen and it can't compete with the computer screen I don't think. And now we have all those screens so against all those screens I think the book can't measure up.

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.

I wouldn't mind writing a long book which is going to occupy me for the rest of my life.

--nor had I understood til then how the shameless vanity of utter fools can so strongly determine the fate of others

'Haunted by the past' is a commonplace phrase because it's a commonplace experience. Even if one is not, strictly speaking, 'haunted', the past is perpetually with one in the present, and the longer it grows and the further it recedes the stronger its presence seems to become.

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