“I was being paid to do what I loved, and there's no gig on earth better than that; it's like a license to steal.”

“Almost everyone can remember losing his or her virginity, and most writers can remember the first book he/she put down thinking: I can do better than this. Hell, I am doing better than this! What could be more encouraging to the struggling writer than to realize his/her work is unquestionably better than that of someone who actually got paid for his/her stuff?”

“There are lots of guys out there who write a better prose line than I do and who have a better understanding of what people are really like and what humanity is supposed to mean – hell, I know that.”

“But listen to me, all three of you, n hear this if you don't hear nothing else: everything I did, I did for love . . . the love a natural mother feels for her children. That's the strongest love there is in the world, and it's the deadliest. There's no bitch on earth like a mother frightened for her kids.”

“For most of us, I think it's easier to admit doing wrong than being stupid.”

“And poets, in my view, and I think the view of most people, do speak God's language - it's better, it's finer, it's language on a higher plane than ordinary people speak in their daily lives.”

“There's no bitch on earth like a mother frightened for her kids.”