I think all writers write for an audience. There is no such thing as writing for yourself.

[Jack] Kerouac was writing fiction. What he did when he wrote about me...he made me out with Russian Countesses and Swiss accounts and other things I didn't have or didn't happen and so on.

Evidence indicates that cats were first tamed in Egypt. The Egyptians stored grain, which attracted rodents, which attracted cats. (No evidence that such a thing happened with the Mayans, though a number of wild cats are native to the area.) I don't think this is accurate. It is certainly not the whole story. Cats didn't start as mousers. Weasels and snakes and dogs are more efficient as rodent-control agents. I postulate that cats started as psychic companions, as Familiars, and have never deviated from this function.

Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment of life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life.

Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.

[Arab peoples] are stuck back thousands of years and they think they're going to get out with a TV set.

Life is a vacation from two eternities, who wants to waste those precious years worrying about what happens when you get back to forever?