“Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake. ”

“Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing. ”

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

“It was evident to him that the world composed and recomposed itself constantly in an endless process of dissatisfaction.”

“And why? Is our genius only in our wombs? Can we not write books and create learned scholarship and perform music and provide philosophical models for the betterment of mankind?”

“The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century.”

“-Of course movies today no longer require film. They are recorded and held in digital suspension as ones and zeroes. And so at the moment the last remaining piece of the world is lit and shot for a movie, there will be another Big Bang... and the multitudes of ones and zeroes will be strewn through the universe as particles that act like waves... until, shaken by borealic winds or ignited by solar flares or otherwise galvanized by this or that heavenly signal, they compose themselves into brilliant constellations that shine in full color across the night sky of a remote planet... where a reverent, unrecognizable form of life will look up from its rooftops at the faces of Randolph Scott, Gail Russell, George Brent, Linda Darnell... to name just a few of the stars.”