When the switch fell I could feel it upon my flesh; when it welted and ridged it was my blood that ran, and I would think with each blow of the switch: Now you are aware of me! Now I am something in your secret and selfish life, who have marked your blood with my own for ever and ever.

I think that-that anyone, the painter, the musician, the writer works in a-a kind of an-an insane fury. He's demon-driven. He can get up feeling rotten, with a hangover, or with-with actual pain, and-and if he gets to work, the first thing he knows, he don't remember that pain, that hangover-he's too busy.

Women do have an affinity for evil, for believing that no woman is to be trusted, but that some men are too innocent to protect themselves.

Ever since then I have believed that God is not only a gentleman and a sport; he is a Kentuckian too.

I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.

That's a very good way to learn the craft of writing - from reading.

An artist is completely amoral in that he will rob, beg, borrow, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.