It is so much safer not to feel, not to let the world touch me.

There ought, I thought, to be a ritual for being born twice - patched, retreaded and approved for the road.

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary. The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.

The man creates a pseudonym and hides behind it like a worm

At this rate, I'd be lucky if I wrote a page a day. Then I knew what the problem was. I needed experience. How could I write about life when I'd never had a love affair or a baby or even seen anybody die? A girl I knew had just won a prize for a short story about her adventures among the pygmies in Africa. How could I compete with that sort of thing?

You have to be able to make a real creative life for Yourself, before you can expect anyone Else to provide one ready-made for you.

I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me.