Books are a uniquely portable magic.

You're dead, George. You just don't have the sense to lie down.

I can't lie and say there are no bad writers. Sorry, but there are lots of bad writers.

Forced to define 'irrational subconscious,' I would say that it is a small padded room inside all of us, where the only furnishing is a small card table, and the only thing on the card table is a revolver loaded with flexible bullets.

One of life's great truths is this: when one is about to be struck by a speeding six-hundred pound Coke machine, one need worry about little else.

I’ve always said to people, "I don’t care what you call me as long as the checks don’t bounce and the family gets fed." But I never saw myself that way. I just saw myself as a novelist.

The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease & intimacy with the process of writing... It also offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn't, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what lies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor.