Discipline is what makes a writer. If writing was like lifting weights, then I'd look like Mr. Universe. Write every day. Give the Muse a chance to get to know you.

Every gift is held by two hands: the one that gives, and the one that takes away.

I have no doubt that 'On the Road' is a Great American Novel. But I'm also certain my students will do fine without it.

When I first read 'On the Road,' it helped me figure out how to live against the grain. Now I wonder how to be subversive when the subversive has become mainstream.

In the time it takes American literary titan William H. Gass to write a novel, other artists have been born, completed their life's work and died. That may be an exaggeration, but only a slight one.

I should be writing a poem every morning but I'm not.

Oh, man, why is this the life? Why is it? Why is one rich and the other poor? Why is one black and the other white?

Those footprints in the snow led me to this wildfire.

You're being parental', I said. 'Go find that squid'.

One life

Science sees signs; Poetry, the thing signified. Co-author with his brother Julius Hare.

Americans have never quite digested television. The mystique which should fade grows stronger. We make celebrities not only of the men who cause events but of the men who read reports of them aloud.

..I wanted to create music that was so different that my mother could tell me from anyone else

I definitely have an alter ego that can come out and get me out of situations where I'm having social anxiety. I can take a deep breath and create a bubble so I can perform in some way.

Satan's successes are the greatest when he appears with the name of God on his lips.

Through meditation one has to achieve a dreamless sleep with full alertness. Once this happens, the drop falls into the ocean and becomes the ocean.

What the great ones do, the less will prattle of