The women in my life have all been librarians, English teachers, or booksellers. If they couldn't speak pidgin Tolstoy, articulate Henry James, or give me directions to Usher and Ox, it was no go. I have always longed for education, and pillow talk's the best.

Write what you love and love what you write.

Don't think about things, just do them; don't predict them, just make them.

You've got to jump off cliffs and build your wings on the way down.

What is it about fire that's so lovely? No matter what age we are, what draws us to it?...The thing man wanted to invent, but never did...If you let it go on, it'd burn our lifetimes out. What is fire? It is a mystery. Scientists give us gobbledygook about friction and molecules. But they don't really know. Its real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences.

I like to smell things and look at things, and sometimes stay up all night, walking, and watch the sun rise.

God, how we get our fingers in each other's clay. That's friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of each other.