“Not one of the boys like me. Ive put their noses out of joint.Well, they were never good-looking lads.”

“Mary, we met in a pub. As you werent banging a tambourine, I understand you werent selling the word of God.”

“I dont know what came over me.Charlie smiled. He drew her to him and kissed her. Me, he said.”

“Not one of the boys like me. I’ve put their noses out of joint.”“Well, they were never good-looking lads.”

“Mary, we met in a pub. As you weren’t banging a tambourine, I understand you weren’t selling the word of God.”

“I don’t know what came over me.”Charlie smiled. He drew her to him and kissed her. “Me,” he said.”

“Failed relationships can be described as so much wasted make-up.”

“Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as far as meaningless experiences go its pretty damn good.”

“Aside from the obvious, Francesca, what do you want in return for supplying information? Bones asked, getting back to the subject. You to take me, she replied at once. Not gonna happen! I spat, squ...”

“The problem is acceptance, which is something we're taught not to do. We're taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the realit...”

“Convince yourself that you are working in clay, not marble, on paper not eternal bronze: Let that first sentence be as stupid as it wishes.”

“I'm sitting in my office trying to squeeze a story from my head. It is that kind of morning when you feel like melting the typewriter into a bar of steel and clubbing yourself to death with it. (Ad...”

“The first thing you have to learn when you go into the arts is to learn to cope with rejection. If you cant, youre dead”

“When I am grown up I shall carry a notebooka fat book with many pages, methodically lettered. I shall enter my phrases.”

“Love the work: the grind, the dreaming, the distracted not-sleep, all of it. Its the one thing in the job that will always be there, and the real pleasure in the profession. Everything else is luck.”