Let's face it, writing is hell.

Most books, like their authors, are born to die; of only a few books can it be said that death has no dominion over them; they live, and their influence lives forever.

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.

It's fine therapy for people who are perpetually scared of nameless threats as I am most of the time — for jittery people.

I get a fine warm feeling when I'm doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Let's face it, writing is hell.

Mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from natural experience, the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain.

The writer's duty is to keep on writing.

Reading - the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay.

The pain is unrelenting; one does not abandon, even briefly, one's bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes.

It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul.

The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it.

What you are is God's gift to you, what you become is your gift to God.

And just when you’d think [humans] were more malignant than ever Hell could be, they occasionally showed more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of.

Don't judge a lion by its swimming abilities.

I never remember my dreams.

If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president.

I know your cause is lost, but in the heart / Of all right causes is a cause that cannot lose.

The two of them went down in a heap, with not even a turkey to break their fall.

You can't depend on the exposure of a TV screen to keep your feet on the ground and your food tasting delicious. You've got to push yourself.

He slept that night thinking of loves and lighthouses. That one love might shine to bring all loves home.

Sometimes I read reviews, and without exception I will read critical essays that are sent to me. The critical essays are interesting on their own terms.