It is indeed difficult to make a living as a writer, and my advice to anyone contemplating a literary career is to have some other trade.

Cheat your landlord if you can -- and must -- but do not try to shortchange the Muse.

danger is a biologic necessity, like dreams. if you face death, for that time, for the period of direct confrontation, you are immortal.

I think anybody incapable of changing his mind is crazy.

Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination.

How long does it take man to realize that he cannot want what he wants? You have to live in hell to see heaven.

Kerouac and I are not real at all. The only thing about a writer is that he has written, and not his so-called life. 'And we (will) all die and the stars will go out, one after another.