“On dope he sometimes thought that all the televisions on Calchalk Street were softly cackling about Richard Tull: news flashes about his most recent failures, panel discussions about his obscurity, his neglect.”

“Although he liked nearly everything else about himself, Keith hated his redeeming features. In his view they constituted his only major shortcoming -his one tragic flaw.”

“Once, as he inhaled with his customary vehemence, I had a thought that made my armpits come alive.”

“We all have names we don't know about.”

“Sex is hard to write about because you lose the universal and succumb to the particular. We all have our different favorites. Good sex is impossible to write about. Lawrence and Updike have given it their all, and the result is still uneasy and unsure. It may be that good sex is something fiction just can't do--like dreams. Most of the sex in my novels is absolutely disastrous. Sex can be funny, but not very sexy.”

“He was an artist when he saw society: it never crossed his mind that society had to be like this; had any right, had any business being like this. A car in the street. Why? Why cars? This is what an artist has to be: harassed to the point of insanity or stupefaction by first principles.”

“Impartially, shrewdly, I considered suicide, though not in my worst moments. The bottle of pills. The note: 'No hard feelings, everyone, but I've thought about it and it's just not on, is it? It's nearly on, but not quite. No? Anyway, all the best, C.”