When a reader finishes a wonderful story and lays it aside, he should have to pause for a minute and collect himself.

I've crossed some kind of invisible line. I feel as if I've come to a place I never thought I'd have to come to. And I don't know how I got here. It's a strange place. It's a place where a little harmless dreaming and then some sleepy, early-morning talk has led me into considerations of death and annihilation.

You're a beautiful drunk, daughter. But you're a drunk.

Art doesn't have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it.

A man can go along obeying all the rules and then it don't matter a damn anymore.

Nights without beginning that had no end. Talking about a past as if it'd really happened. Telling themselves that this time next year, this time next year, things were going to be different.

I am a cigarette with a body attached to it