Dreams age faster than dreamers.

Talent is a dreadfully cheap commodity, cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work and study; a constant process of honing. Talent is a dull knife that will cut nothing unless it is wielded with great force.

Kill if you will, but command me nothing!

The idea for a novel is like a little tiny fire in a dark night. And, one by one, the characters come and stand around it and warm their hands.

Oh Christ, he groaned to himself, if this is the stuff adults have to think about I never want to grow up

All right I think we've been down here in the dark long enough. There's a whole other world upstairs. Take my hand Constant Reader and I'll be happy to lead you back into the sunshine. I'm happy to go there because I believe most people are essentially good. I know that I am. It's you I'm not entirely sure of.

The idea that the creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time. Substance abusing writers are just substance abusers — common garden variety drunks and druggies, in other words. Any claims that the drugs and alcohol are necessary to dull a finer sensibility are just the usual self-serving bullshit. I've heard alcoholic snowplow drivers make the same claim, that they drink to still the demons.