Bad writing is more than a matter of (expletive deleted) syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street.

Art is the concrete artifact of faith and expectation, the realization of a world that would otherwise be little more than a veil of pointless consciousness stretched over a gulf of mystery.

They say that loving eyes can never see, but that's a fool's axiom. Sometimes, they see too much

But it's hard for a man to give up all his pleasures, even when they don't pleasure him no more.

When you own a piano, it's harder to think about moving.

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

Legends grow beards, and twenty-three years is plenty of time to grow a long one.