Sometimes loving eyes don't see what they don't want to see.

The book is not the important part. The book is the delivery system. The important part is the story and the talent.

Everything's a lot tougher when it's for real. That's when you choke. When it's for real.

I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. 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.

Oh Christ, he groaned to himself, if this is the stuff adults have to think about I never want to grow up

I guess when you turn off the main road, you have to be prepared to see some funny houses.

Somebody said the prospect of eminent death has a wonderful clarifying effect on the mind. And I don't know if that's true, but I do think it probably causes some changes, some evolution in the way a person works. But on a day-by-day basis, I just still enjoy doing what I'm doing.