It all began, as I have said, when the Boss, sitting in the black Cadillac which sped through the night, said to me (to Me who was what Jack Burden, the student of history, had grown up to be) "There is always something." And I said, "Maybe not on the Judge." And he said, "Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something.

Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something (All The King's Men)

I've been to a lot of places and done a lot of things, but writing was always first. It's a kind of pain I can't do without.

The past is always a rebuke to the present.

They say you are not you except in terms of relation to other people. If there weren't any other people there wouldn't be any you because what you do, which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people.

...a man does not die for words. He dies for his relation to them.

If you look at a thing, the very fact of your looking changes it...if you think about yourself, that very fact changes you.