"This is what being alive's all about, all those fucked up feelings. You've got to have them; when you stop, watch out."

"You were what you were and you are what you are. Fuck that regrets bullshit."

"Disapproving of things is all right. But you mustn't disapprove of people. It cuts you off."

"Thinking about the misery of the world is a favourite contemporary occupation. and if you can't think the television set will think for you."

"(I think I fell in love with you when you were shouting at Romeo and Juliet, 'Don't touch each other!')"

"Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing."

"Don't seek God in temples. He is close to you. He is within you. Only you should surrender to Him and you will rise above happiness and unhappiness."

"If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it."

"If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence."

"At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want."

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."

"When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you."

"Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you."

"Never look backwards or you'll fall down the stairs."

"If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. . . . The world will be yours and everything in it, what's more, you'll be a man, my son."

"If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. The world will be yours and everything in it, what's more, you'll be a man, my son."

"Your new-caught, sullen peoples / Half devil and half child."

"How come anything you buy will go on sale next week?"

"Never write about a place until you're away from it, because that gives you perspective"

"You're beautiful, like a May fly."

"When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first."

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

"You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself."

"You write a book like that you're fond of over the years, then you see that happen to it, it's like pissing in your father's beer."