Yes, I’ve made a great deal of dough from my fiction, but I never set a single word down on paper with the thought of being paid for it...I have written because it fulfilled me. ... I did it for the pure joy of the things. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.

Madness is a kind of mental suicide.

It's best to be ruthless with the past.

We all do what we can, and it has to be good enough, and if it isn't good enough, it has to do.

Stories are like relics, part of an undiscovered preexisting world. The writer's job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible.

How else could he go on, except with merciful incomprehension held before him like a shield? How could anyone?

Isn't it too bad that the great truths are all such lies.