“i do not like to work and have no trade but i do like to eat, so this is basic, the basic training of slaves to fear...”

“You're afraid of the audience, aren't you?""Yes, but it's not stagefright. It's that I'm there as the geek. They like to watch me eat my shit. But it pays the light bill and takes me to the racetrack. I don't have any excuses about why I do it.”

“Basically, that's why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.”

“Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.”

“there are so many dayswhen living stops and pulls up and sitsand waits like a train on the rails.”

“SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITERif it doesn't come bursting out of youin spite of everything,don't do it.unless it comes unasked out of yourheart and your mind and your mouthand your gut,don't do it.if you have to sit for hoursstaring at your computer screenor hunched over yourtypewritersearching for words,don't do it.if you're doing it for money orfame,don't do it.if you're doing it because you wantwomen in your bed,don't do it.if you have to sit there andrewrite it again and again,don't do it.if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,don't do it.if you're trying to write like somebodyelse,forget about it.if you have to wait for it to roar out ofyou,then wait patiently.if it never does roar out of you,do something else.if you first have to read it to your wifeor your girlfriend or your boyfriendor your parents or to anybody at all,you're not ready.don't be like so many writers,don't be like so many thousands ofpeople who call themselves writers,don't be dull and boring andpretentious, don't be consumed with self-love.the libraries of the world haveyawned themselves tosleepover your kind.don't add to that.don't do it.unless it comes out ofyour soul like a rocket,unless being still woulddrive you to madness orsuicide or murder,don't do it.unless the sun inside you isburning your gut,don't do it.when it is truly time,and if you have been chosen,it will do it byitself and it will keep on doing ituntil you die or it dies in you.there is no other way.and there never was.”

“So you want to be a writer if it doesn’t come bursting out of youin spite of everything,don’t do it.unless it comes unasked out of yourheart and your mind and your mouthand your gut,don’t do it.if you have to sit for hoursstaring at your computer screenor hunched over yourtypewritersearching for words,don’t do it.if you’re doing it for money orfame,don’t do it.if you’re doing it because you wantwomen in your bed,don’t do it.if you have to sit there andrewrite it again and again,don’t do it.if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,don’t do it.if you’re trying to write like somebodyelse,forget about it.if you have to wait for it to roar out ofyou,then wait patiently.if it never does roar out of you,do something else.if you first have to read it to your wifeor your girlfriend or your boyfriendor your parents or to anybody at all,you’re not ready.don’t be like so many writers,don’t be like so many thousands ofpeople who call themselves writers,don’t be dull and boring andpretentious, don’t be consumed with self-love.the libraries of the world haveyawned themselves tosleepover your kind.don’t add to that.don’t do it.unless it comes out ofyour soul like a rocket,unless being still woulddrive you to madness orsuicide or murder,don’t do it.unless the sun inside you isburning your gut,don’t do it.when it is truly time,and if you have been chosen,it will do it byitself and it will keep on doing ituntil you die or it dies in you.there is no other way.and there never was.”