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.

Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.

Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.

If there is love, smallpox scars are as pretty as dimples. I'll love your face no matter what it looks like. Because it's yours.

In the stutter-flashes of light, the clouds look like huge transparent brains filled with bad thoughts.

Black as night and as beautiful as forever.

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