Remember that 'plumber in space' is not such a bad setup for a story.

Like some dogs: kick them once and they never trust you again, no matter how nice you are to them.

No one can be as intellectually slothful as a really smart person

It's best to have your tools with you. If you don't, you're apt to find something you didn't expect and get discouraged.

The kids accepted my drinking as a part of life. Not a particularly pernicious part. I didn't beat up on them. Basically I don't think I was so different from a lot of dads who have three or four martinis when they get in from work, wine with dinner and so on.

Thin clouds form, and the shadows lengthen out. They have no breadth, as summer shadows have; there are no leaves on the trees or fat clouds in the sky to make them thick. They are gaunt, mean shadows that bite the ground like teeth. As the sun nears the horizon, its benevolent yellow begins to deepen, to become infected, until it glares an angry inflamed orange. It throws a variegated glow over the horizon.

The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time.