“I neither knew nor cared whether my experience was insanity, dreaming, or magic; but was determined to gaze on brilliance and gaiety at any cost.”

“Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane.”

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.”

“Ultimate horror often paralyses memory in a merciful way.”

“That's because only a real artist knows the actual anatomy of the terrible or the physiology of fear - the exact sort of lines and proportions that connect up with latent instincts or hereditary me...”

“I was nearly unnerved at my proximity to a nameless thing at the bottom of a pit.”

“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.”