"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector."

"The rain came down, sluicing the blood from the cobblestones, and the day was clean and washed."

"Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you are a lucky man to remember it."

"The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it."

"We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master."