If you haven't fought for your life for something you want, you don't know what's life all about.

There’s only one subject for fiction or poetry or even a joke: how it is. In all the arts, the payoff is always the same: recognition. If it works, you say that’s real, that’s truth, that’s life, that’s the way things are. ‘There it is.’

It’s hard to stay away from religion when you mess with acid.

That's the great thing about literature -- it makes the world less lonely.

The things that you know more about than you want to know are very useful.

If you couldn't tell the difference between what hurt and what didn't, you had no business being alive. You can't have any good times if you can't tell.

When rewriting, move quickly. It's a little like cutting your own hair.