“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.”

“You know how sometimes you can be going along and do something or say something, and suddenly you *know* yourself? I mean, it's like you're looking at somebody else, and it's just so fucking clear you want to hit something.”

“You're never confident. You go in fear and trembling every day. It would be awfully nice to think that you know how to write a novel. But what you know is the novel you just wrote. You don't have the slightest notion how to write the one you're going to do next.”

“If you don't care, don't ask me how I am. Chances are, I don't care how you are, either. And it's not because I don't respect you or think you're loser. I just don't know you well enough to care yet. So, let's pass each other in silence and go on with our lives.”

“How do you know it's true if you don't believe in it?""I...huh?""How can you understand something you don't believe in?""Shin, that doesn't make any sense. That's like saying you can't understand leprechauns unless you believe in them.""Do you understand leprechauns?""I don't believe in them.""There you go.”

“I don't care if the New York Times writes an obituary for me. I just want you to write one. ... You say you're not special because the world doesn't know about you, but that's an insult to me. I know about you.”