Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.

I think I write in a fairly self-confident manner.

Some people write heavily, some write lightly. I prefer the light approach because I believe there is a great deal of false reverence about. There is too much solemnity and intensity in dealing with sacred matters; too much speaking in holy tones.

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.

The personal ego already has a strong element of dysfunction, but the collective ego is, frequently, even more dysfunctional, to the point of absolute insanity.

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.

My writing is jagged and harsh, I want it to remain that way; I don’t want it smoothed out.

I particularly admire are Mark Twain and Jerome K. Jerome who wrote in a certain tone of voice which was humane and understanding of humanity, but always ready to annotate its little foibles. I think I’d lay my cards down on that, and say that it’s that that I’m trying to do.

My favorite writers have been those who’ve said things well.

The things I talk about and explain couldn’t happen – yet, they don’t seem impossible – you could say I talk about the world in an abstract perspective. But then, the world is basically insane – and it’s trying to pass itself off as being a sane place. I show it for what it is.

The only difference between the sane and the insane is that the sane have the power to lock up the insane.

Sure, women sportswriters look when they’re in the clubhouse. Read their stories. How else do you explain a capital letter in the middle of a word?

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

Yes, I, well, when I write, as often as I can, I try to write as if I’m talking to people. It doesn’t always work, and one shouldn’t always try it, but I try and write as if I am talking, and trying to engage the reader in conversation.

For me, a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity.

For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

In my own work, I tend to cover a lot of time and to jump back and forward in time, and sometimes the way I do this is not very straightforward.

What happened in the missile crisis in October 1962 has been prettified to make it look as if acts of courage and thoughtfulness abounded. The truth is that the whole episode was almost insane.

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Some of the stories I admire seem to zero in on one particular time and place. There isn’t a rule about this. But there’s a tidy sense about many stories I read. In my own work, I tend to cover a lot of time and to jump back and forward in time, and sometimes the way I do this is not very straightforward.

Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.

I have great respect for the semicolon; it is a mighty handy little fellow.

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

Somebody once asked me what my theory of life was, and I said, ‚Don’t try.‘ That fits the writing, too. I don’t try; I just type.

Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward.

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn’t a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.