“If a story is in you, it has to come out.”

“But you cant be alive forever, and you always wear out life long before you have exhausted the possibilities of living. And all that must be somewhere; all that could not have been invented and created just to be thrown away. And the earth is shallow; there is not a great deal of it before you come to the rock. And the earth dont want to just keep things, hoard them; it wants to use them again.”

“Good art can come out of thieves, bootleggers, or horse swipes. People really are afraid to find out just how much hardship and poverty they can stand. They are afraid to find out how tough they are. Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death. Good ones don't have time to bother with success or getting rich. Success is feminine and like a woman; if you cringe before her, she will override you. So the way to treat her is to show her the back of your hand. Then maybe she will do the crawling.”

“If you could just ravel out into time. That would be nice. It would be nice if you could just ravel out into time”

“...thinking as he had thought before and would think again and as every other man has thought: how false the most profound book turns out to be when applied to life.”

“Your outside is just what you live in, sleep in, and has little connection with who you are and even less with what you do.”

“I say money has no value; it's just the way you spend it.”