“I write as a function. Without it I would fall ill and die. It's as much a part of one as the liver or intestine, and just about as glamorous.”

“I'm going to open another vottle. not a vottle, but a bottle. you open it and I'll drink it. and you try to write as much as I did without falling off of your chair.”

“If I could only make her fall in love with me. Pretend to be a writer and just fuck her and have her cook for me. I would never have to write I’d just pretend.”

“bad writing's like bad women: there's just not much you can do about it”

“Sex is interesting, but it's not totally important. I mean it's not even as important (physically) as excretion. A man can go seventy years without a piece of ass, but he can die in a week without a bowel movement.”

“out of the arms...out of the arms of one loveand into the arms of anotherI have been saved from dying on the crossby a lady who smokes potwrites songs and stories,and is much kinder than the last,much much kinder,and the sex is just as good or better.it isn't pleasant to be put on the cross and left there,it is much more pleasant to forget a love which didn'tworkas all lovefinallydoesn't work...it is much more pleasant to make lovealong the shore in Del Marin room 42, and afterwardssitting up in beddrinking good wine, talking and touchingsmokinglistening to the waves...I have died too many timesbelieving and waiting, waitingin a roomstaring at a cracked ceilingwaiting for the phone, a letter, a knock, a sound...going wild insidewhile she danced with strangers in nightclubs...out of the arms of one loveand into the arms of anotherit's not pleasant to die on the cross,it's much more pleasant to hear your name whispered in the dark.”

“Some nights I knew that if I slept I would die.”