I think all of us are looking for that which does not admit of bullshit . . . If you tell me you can bench press 450, hell, we'll load up the bar and….

The truth of the matter was stories was everything and everything was stories. Everybody told stories. It was a way of saying who they were in the wo….

There ought to be a law against the sun rising and setting for you in somebody else..

I first became fascinated with the Sears catalogue because all the people in its pages were perfect. Nearly everybody I knew had something missing, a….

Writing a book is like torture that you don't know, but after it's done and there it is. It's a joy like unlike anything else, I think it's the close….

Speaks well of a man to need a little something in this world. I wouldn't trust a man who could git through it cold sober..

Alcohol whipped me. Alcohol and I had many, many marvelous times together. We laughed, we talked, we danced at the party together; then one day I wok….

That was the only decision there was once upon a time: what to do with the night..

Writers spend all their time preoccupied with just the things that their fellow men and women spend their time trying to avoid thinking about. ... It….

If you're gonna write, for God in heaven's sake, try to get naked. Try to write the truth. Try to get underneath all the sham, all the excuses, all t….

The writers job is to get naked, To hide nothing. To look away from nothing. To look at it. To not blink. To be not embarrassed or shamed of it. Stri….

I never wanted to be well-rounded. I do not admire well-rounded people nor their work. So far as I can see, nothing good in the world has ever been d….

Hell came right along with God, hand in hand. The stink of sulfur swirled in the air of the church, fire burned in the aisles, and brimstone rained o….

God love the car. It has shown the naked heart that lives in all of us. Man invented the car but the car -- out of pure malevolence no doubt -- chang….

If you wait until you got time to write a novel, or time to write a story, or time to read the hundred thousands of books you should have already rea….

What the artist owes the world is his work; not a model for living..

I believe some people are just too damn smart to write fiction..

Survival is triumph enough..

Teaching, real teaching, is - or ought to be - a messy business..

There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with..

The artist lives in an atmosphere of perpetual failure..