I Know All One Can Know When

You Are What You Are And That Fascinates Me.

Drinking Isn't Necessarily The Same As Wanting To Die. But You Can't Drink Without Thinking You're Killing Yourself.

Finding Yourself In A Hole, At The Bottom Of A Hole, In Almost Total Solitude, And Discovering That Only Writing Can Save You. To Be Without The Slightest Subject For A Book, The Slightest Idea For A Book, Is To Find Yourself, Once Again, Before A Book. A Vast Emptiness. A Possible Book. Before Nothing. Before Something Like Living, Naked Writing, Like Something Terrible, Terrible To Overcome.

Nowhere Is One More Alone Than In Paris ... And Yet Surrounded By Crowds. Nowhere Is One More Likely To Incur Greater Ridicule. And No Visit Is More Essential.

No Other Human Being, No Woman, No Poem Or Music, Book Or Painting Can Replace Alcohol In Its Power To Give Man The Illusion Of Real Creation.