I lost my second marriage because of drinking, and I loved the woman very much. But I thought I needed booze to write. I'm glad I was disabused.

Voice comes to you through a spell, a trance. The best voices are not you... they're a little away from you.

Professional Southerners sicken me.

Literature is the history of the soul.

What a bog and labyrinth the human essence is... We are all overbrained and overemotioned.

You need to see a bit of hell now and then. That, and great joy.

If you are able to explain suffering, a man once told him, you weren't really there.

I don't write under the ghost of Faulkner. I live in the same town and find his life and work inspiring, but that's it. I have a motorcycle and tool along the country lanes. I travel at my own speed.

Randomness I love. And I still love just a holler right in the middle of an ongoing narrative. Pain or joy, ecstasy.

The Deep South might be wretched, but it can howl.

My best stories come out of nowhere, with no concern for form at all.

Inner Peace can be seen as the ultimate benefit of practicing patience.

Authors write books for one, and only one, reason: because we like to torture people.

Live and let live.

By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed.

The cool blade Severs between coolness, apple-rind Compelling a recognition.

The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible.

Everything's filthy. But you know what? One day it's not gonna be here. So just be glad you know what life is. You're alive. Live.

People do not love those whose eyes show that they are somewhere else

I'm interested in photographs that have no personal signature.

Everyone uses noise as a crutch sometimes - I've totally done it. But when you make a good-sounding record there's nothing there but you.