There was nothing glorious about the life of a drinker or the life of a writer.
Writers don't have lifestyles. They just sit in little rooms and write.
A number of people have read 'Two-Way Split' and made certain assumptions about what the author's like, and I'm highly disappointing to them. I don't drink, I don't eat meat; that's very disappointing for a hard-boiled writer.
You have to really have a taste for being alone to be a writer.
The best life for a writer is the life which helps him write the best books he can.
If your way of life is writing, then everything that happens becomes a sentence.
Nothing mattered ... but writing books, and living the kind of life that made it possible to write them.
The best thing about writing has been the writer's life, the sense of being expressed, the ownership of the day, the entirely specious sense of freedom we have, however slave we are to some boss or other. I wouldn't trade it for any other life.
I feel like one can have all of that as a writer; you're writing, you're reading, you're talking to interesting and intelligent people. Your life is structured around whatever book you're writing, and so is your reading and so are many of your conversations.
When... I told my father I wanted to be a writer, he had asked me to consider my unfortunate wife, who would have me about the house all day 'wearing a dressing gown, brewing tea and stumped for words'.
Most writers flourish greatly on a simple, healthy routine with occasional time off for gaiety.
