“There's no way I can stop writing, it's a form of insanity.”

“There is a time to stop reading, there is a time to STOP trying to WRITE, there is a time to kick the whole bloated sensation of ART out on its whore-ass.”

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

“There's nothing to stop a man from writing unless that manstops himself. If a man truly desires to write, then he will.Rejection and ridicule will only strengthen him. And the longerhe is held back the stronger he will become, like a mass of risingwater against a dam. There is no losing in writing, it will make your toes laughas you sleep, it will make you stride like a tiger, it will firethe eye and put you face to face with death. You will die a fighter, you will be honored in hell. The luck of the word. Go with it, send it.”

“That moment - to this ...may be years in the way they measure,but it's only one sentence back in my mind - there are so many dayswhen living stops and pulls up and sitsand waits like a train on the rails.I pass the hotel at 8and at 5; there are cats in the alleysand bottles and bums,and I look up at the window and think,I no longer know where you are,and I walk on and wonder wherethe living goeswhen it stops.”

“To experience real agony is something hard to write about, impossible to understand while it grips you; you're frightened out of your wits, can’t sit still, move, or even go decently insane.”

“and I laugh, I can still laugh, who can't laugh when the whole thingis so ridiculousthat only the insane, the clowns, the half-wits, the cheaters, the whores, the horseplayers, the bankrobbers, the poets ... are interesting?”