The story and the poem are obviously changed by being placed in the novel, so in a sense they're no longer the works that preceded the novel.

When the narrator feels like an octopus, when he says his limbs are starting to multiply, he means he has inklings of orders of perception beyond his individual body.

Art has to offer something other than stylized despair.

I'm defending fiction as a human capacity more than as a popular or dying literary genre.

I’ll work my way from irony to sincerity in the sinking city, a would-be Whitman of the vulnerable grid.

Shaving is a way to start the workday by ritually not cutting your throat when you've the chance.

The transpersonal is more awe-inspiring, more exciting than the thing we confuse it for.

I came to realize that far more important to me than any plot or conventional sense was the sheer directionality I felt while reading prose, the texture of time as it passed, life's white machine.

I have no interest in artists who are purely affirmative, who've made a commercialized fetish of the culture's stupidity.

Many of the left thinkers that really matter to me - that formed a big part of my thinking about politics and art - emphasize how capitalism is a totality, how there's no escape from it, no outside.

Experiments with the "as if" of fiction are often more lively in poetry and criticism and other modes of writing than in weak short stories or novels.

A reputable person is he who has trust in his own Self. Self means who? “I am Pure Soul”, it is that Self.

Travel is so important in its capacity to expand the mind. It's exciting to start as young as possible - you get to see how other cultures live, challenge your senses, and try different cuisines.

A gift - be it a present, a kind word or a job done with care and love - explains itself!... and if receivin' it embarrasses you, it's because your 'thanks box' is warped.

Who does not grow, declines.

America, you have it better than our continent, the old one.

When the people fear a government, they're a tyranny. When a government fears the people, there is liberty.

I always had the desire to entertain people, whether it was to make 'em laugh or to scare 'em or stir things up just to cause problems.

prayer is nothing more than thought. It is a yearning of the heart.

Anything a wife should do, I'm terrible at. Anything a mistress should do, I'll try.