Friends come in and out of our lives, like busboys in a restaurant.

It's hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written.

I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it is the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

Whatever came to mind, whatever came to hand, I would read.

I believe the first draft of a book — even a long one — should take no more than three months…Any longer and — for me, at least — the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel, like a dispatch from the Romanian Department of Public Affairs, or something broadcast on high-band shortwave duiring a period of severe sunspot activity.

It's only a little secret, but having a secret makes me feel better. Like a human being again.

The act of writing itself is done in secret, like masturbation.