I'll never retire. They'll have to take my computer out of my cold, dead hands. I'm addicted to writing. I feel physically unwell if I'm not doing it.

Life is a process of one goneness after another.

Is there an existence that is only mine?

More and more I'm aware that the permutations are not unlimited.

The first thing I would say to young writers is, "Don't do it, unless you can't stand not to do it." And the second thing I would say is, "If you do do it, and get into it, the constant rule you should have in mind is to explore your material." It sounds simple, but it isn't, because people often want to get from A to B, and they don't stop to look at what is in the material.

After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?

When I write a book, I don't have a plan or an outline. The characters move the action, and the action develops the characters. When I write a book, I become an actor, really, taking the role of the person who is speaking or acting at the time, and so their reactions to whatever they see are my reactions.