“You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative”

“You see, control can never be a means to any practical end...It can never be a means to anything but more control...like junk..”

“Knowing you might not make it... in that knowledge courage is born.”

“we are all alone, born alone, die alone, and — in spite of true romance magazines — we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. i do not say lonely — at least, not all the time — but essentially, and finally, alone. this is what makes your self-respect so important, and i don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness”

“Cheat your landlord if you can -- and must -- but do not try to shortchange the Muse.”

“I began to get a feeling (...) of being the only sane man in a nut house. It doesn't make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is nobody you can contact.”

“You know, they ask me if I were on a desert island and I knew nobody would ever see what I wrote, would I go on writing. My answer is most emphatically yes. I would go on writing for company. Because I'm creating an imaginary — it's always imaginary — world in which I would like to live.(Interview, The Paris Review)”