And the most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity.

No, it's not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.

You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.

As far as where I go when I die, the concept that I am simple going to flick out, like a light bulb, to me is not only spiritually impossible to believe, but logically it is laughable - the idea that we simply die and nothing happens.

Life turns on a dime. Sometimes towards us, but more often it spins away, flirting and flashing as it goes: so long, honey, it was good while it lasted, wasn’t it?

Did it [cocaine] for about eight years. Not a terribly long time to be an addict I guess, but it is longer than World War II.

Once, during the drinking phase, Wendy had accused him of desiring his own destruction but not possessing the necessary moral fiber to support a full-blown deathwish. So he manufactured ways in which other people could do it, lopping a piece at a time off himself and their family.