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.

As a young child I wanted to be a writer because writers were rich and famous. They lounged around Singapore and Rangoon smoking opium in a yellow pongee silk suit. They sniffed cocaine in Mayfair and they penetrated forbidden swamps with a faithful native boy and lived in the native quarter of Tangier smoking hashish and languidly caressing a pet gazelle.

How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.

America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. The evil is there waiting.

The only way I like to see cops given flowers is in a flower pot from a high window.

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.

To be an outlaw you must first have a base in law to reject and get out of, I never had such a base. I never had a place I could call home that meant any more than a key to a house, apartment or hotel room. ... Am I alien? Alien from what exactly? Perhaps my home is my dream city, more real than my waking life precisely because it has no relation to waking life.