I have total recall. I remember being born. I remember being in the womb, I remember being inside. Coming out was great.

Writing can be described in two verbs: Throw up and clean up.

Don't write for money. Write because you love to do something. If you write for money, you won't write anything worth reading.

People who take books on sex to bed become frigid. You get self-conscious. You can't think a story. You can't think, "I shall do a story to improve mankind." Well, it's nonsense. All the great stories, all the really worthwhile plays, are emotional experiences. If you have to ask yourself whether or not you love a girl or you love a boy, forget it. You don't. A story is the same way. You either feel a story and need to write it, or you better not write it.

I do a first draft as passionately and as quickly as I can. I believe a story is valid only when it's immediate and passionate, when it dances out of your subconscious. If you interfere in any way, you destroy it.

And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again.

The novel's not organized like a screenplay. If you shot the novel, you'd have a twelve-hour movie.