“Fiction is an improvement on life”

“I remembered my New Orleans days, living on two five-cent candy bars a day for weeks at a time in order to have leisure to write. But starvation, unfortunately, didn't improve art. It only hindered it. A man's soul was rooted in his stomach. A man could write much better after eating a porterhouse steak and drinking a pint of whiskey than he could ever write after eating a nickel candy bar. The myth of the starving artist was a hoax.”

“There was nothing glorious about the life of a drinker or the life of a writer.”

“Life's as kind as you let it be.”

“Without literature, life is hell.”

“It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun”

“You can’t beat death butyou can beat death in life, sometimes.and the more often you learn to do it,the more light there will be.your life is your life.know it while you have it.”