Don’t let people interfere with you. Boot ’em out, turn off the phone, hide away, get it done. If you carry a short story over to the next day you may overnight intellectualize something about it and try to make it too fancy, try to please someone.

I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library.

Out in the world not much happened. But here in the special night, a land bricked with paper and leather anything might happen, always did.

I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they're going.

Since everything is but an apparition, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter. Longchenpa Let's stuff our eyes with wonder, let's live as if we'd drop dead in ten seconds. Let's see the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

The reason I shift gears constantly, why I'm doing an opera, why I've done essays, why I've written poetry for years that nobody wanted, why I do short stories and novels and screenplays... is so I will have new ways of failing. This means becoming a student again.

I’m the thing you most desire, you represent the thing I least desire, death. It’s just the opposite of love.