If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.

True sorrow is as rare as true love.

They had discovered one could grow as hungry for light as for food.

Lovecraft opened the way for me, as he had done for others before me

I've spoken out my whole life against the idea of simply dismissing whole areas of fiction by saying it's "genre" and therefore can't be seen as literature.

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.

there's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst.