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.

Writing a first draft is like trying to build a house in a strong wind.

It feels almost soft, like something to be caressed. Only gold feels that way.

We have all heard what we wanted to hear! Truth that sounds right to our ears!

I discovered that my own little postage stamp of native soil was worth writing about and that I would never live long enough to exhaust it.

Life was created in the valleys. It blew up onto the hills on the old terrors, the old lusts, the old despairs. That's why you must walk up the hills so you can ride down.

A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid.