“To literary critics a book is assumed to be guilty until it proves itself innocent.”

“I'm not against sentimentality. I think you need it. I mean, I don't think you get a true picture of people without it in writing... It's a kind of poetry, it's an emotional poetry, and, to bring it back to the literary scene, I don't think anything is true that doesn't have it, that doesn't have poetry in it.”

“A book, a true book, is the writer's confessional. For, whether he would have it so or not, he is betrayed, directly or indirectly, by his characters, into presenting publicly his innermost feelings.”

“If Jesus Christ treated me like you do, I’d drive in the nails myself.”

“Heroin got the drive awright-but there’s not a tingle to a ton-you got to get M to get the tingle-tingle.”

“Any writer who knows what he's doing isn't doing very much.”

“Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.”