“I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance.”

“I will not dumb myself down to make someone else more comfortable with their ignorance.”

“Every moment I live, I live bowed to something. And if I don't see God, I'll bow down before something else.”

“Maybe being oneself is an acquired taste. For a writer it's a big deal to bow--or kneel or get knocked down--to the fact that you are going to write your own books and not somebody else's. Not even those books of the somebody else you thought it was your express business to spruce yourself up to be.”

“I will not be someone who abandons my principles as soon as they become inconvenient. I will not be someone who says that certain things have to be done… as long as somebody else does them.”

“Living down your own past was hard enough. You shouldn't have to live down someone else's.”