“You know you’re writing well when you’re throwing good stuff into the wastebasket.”

“I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”

“For God sake write and don't worry about what the boys will say nor whether it will be a masterpiece nor what.I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”

“You’re my religion. You’re all I’ve got.”

“Now he would never write the things that he had saved to write until he knew enough to write them well. Well, he would not have to fail at trying to write them either. Maybe you could never write them, and that was why you put them off and delayed the starting. Well he would never know, now.”

“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.”

“Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it?”