“What's genius? I don't know but I do know that the difference between a madman and a professional is that a pro does as well as he can within whathe has set out to do and a madman does exceptionally well at what he can't help doing.”

“Writing is something that you don't know how to do. You sit down and it's something that happens, or it may not happen. So, how can you teach anybody how to write? It's beyond me, because you yourself don't even know if you're going to be able to. I'm always worried, well, you know, every time I go upstairs with my wine bottle. Sometimes I'll sit at that typewriter for fifteen minutes, you know. I don't go up there to write. The typewriter's up there. If it doesn't start moving, I say, well this could be the night that I hit the dust.”

“Someday,” I told Jan, “when they demonstrate that the world has four dimensions instead of just three, a man will be able to go for a walk and just disappear. No burial, no tears, no illusions, no heaven or hell. People will be sitting around and they’ll say, ‘What happened to George?’ And somebody will say, ‘Well, I don’t know. He said he was going out for a pack of cigarettes.”

“he asked, "what makes a man awriter?""well," I said, "it's simple, it's either youget it down on paper or you jump off abridge.writers are desperate people and when they stopbeing desperate they stop beingwriters.""are you desperate?""I don't know...”

“well, i don't know about you but I'm going to try everything! War, women, travel, marriage, children, the works. [...]. I want to know about things, what makes them work!”

“I think I need a drink.''Almost everybody does only they don't know it.”

“What good are you? What can you do? It has cost me a thousands of dollars to raise you, feed you, clothe you!Suppose I left you here on the street? Then what would you do?" "Catch butterflies”