“By then I knew that everything good and bad left an emptiness when it stopped. But if it was bad, the emptiness filled up by itself. If it was good you could only fill it by finding something better.”

“You should only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad.”

“I say that is wine," Brett held up her glass. "We ought to toast something. 'Here's to royalty.'""This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. you don't want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. you lose the taste."Brett's glass was empty.”

“Do you suffer when you write? I don't at all. Suffer like a bastard when don't write, or just before, and feel empty and fucked out afterwards. But never feel as good as while writing.”

“I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.”

“So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”

“A severed femoral artery empties itself faster than you can believe.”