“I want to say something about bad writing. I'm proud of my bad writing. Everyone is so intelligent lately, and stylish. Fucking great. I am proud of Philip Guston's bad painting, I am proud of Baudelaire's mamma's boy goo goo misery. Sometimes the lurid or shitty means having a heart, which's something you have to try to have. Excellence nowadays is too general and available to be worth prizing: I am interested in people who have to find strange and horrible ways to just get from point a to point b.”

“I am a commercial writer and I'm proud of that. I am writing things to be put in the bookstore next month. I think it is a mistake to try to write for the ages.”

“In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my own small way.I don't think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very pleasant.”

“Because as proud as I am of you, I need to do something that makes me proud of myself" (Harper)”

“I tell these stories because I have lied about my life to people who have been kind to me and I am tired of lying. I tell it because I don't want people to think that I have fucked up my life over and over just because I was in a bad mood.”

“Might paint something I might want to hang here someday, might write something I might want to say to you someday, might do something I'd be proud of someday. Mark my words, I might be something someday.”