“The quest of the alchemists to turn lead into gold is a metaphor for our attempts to turn the base metal of ourselves, that person hooked on consumerism, filled with angst and ambition, into the go...”

“One passion leads to another. It's passion that makes the wheels of life turn, passion for work, passion for pleasure, passion for passion.”

“If you add the shadow of death to a moment of passion you are in that instant free of all normal ties, your mind grows still and your body enters a state of non-being.”

“If you are open to change and welcome surprise, you know the secret of creativity and the secret of life.”

“You don't become a success by breaking the rules. You don't become a success by obeying the rules. You become a success by inventing the rules.”

“There was a monster in me that had to be fed by success. There is a monster in us all that has to be fed by something.”

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

“Writing is a struggle against silence.”

“Work on a good piece of writing proceeds on three levels: a musical one, where it is composed; an architectural one, where it is constructed; and finally, a textile one, where it is woven.”

“People who think that grammar is just a collection of rules and restrictions are wrong. If you get to like it, grammar reveals the hidden meaning of history, hides disorder and abandonment, links t...”