From this outer edge of his life, looking back, there was only one remorse, and that was only that he wished to go on living. Did all dying people feel this way, as if they had never lived? Did life seem that short, indeed, over and done before you took a breath? Did it seem this abrupt and impossible to everyone, or only to himself, here, now, with a few hours left to him for thought and deliberation?

Think of Shakespeare and Melville and you think of thunder, lightning, wind. They all knew the joy of creating in large or small forms, on unlimited or restricted canvases. These are the children of the gods.

Don’t try to write a novel. Write short stories and then figure out how to connect them.

We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.

I think the sun is a flower, That blooms for just one hour.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

I shall remain on Mars and read a book.