The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.

I get very tense working, so I often have to get up and wander around the house. It is very bad on my stomach. I have to be mad to be working well anyway, and then I am mad about the way things are going on the page in addition. My ulcer flourishes and I have to chew lots of pills. When my work is going well, I am usually sort of sick.

What one wants to do with stories is screw them up.

It’s not the word made flesh we want in writing, in poetry and fiction, but the flesh made word

Getting even is one reason for writing.

Sports, politics, and religion are the three passions of the badly educated.

[As] authorities "over" us are removed, as we wobble out on our own, the question of whether to be or not to be arises with real relevance for the first time, since the burden of being is felt most fully by the self-determining self.