One of the greatest enemies of happiness, of enjoying life, is the intrusion of loneliness. When you’re most alone is in nausea; when you’re throwing up you are alone on the face of this earth. The moment of orgasm is very lonely too—a little island in the middle of nowhere. There are a lot of paradoxes involved.

When you’re working very hard you’re not lonely; you are the whole damn world. I have a strong feeling that the very worst writing of all comes out of what’s called inspiration. Good writing doesn’t come from inspiration. It may spark you, set you off, but if you write under the influence of inspiration, you will write very badly—probably sentimentally, which is even worse. Inspiration certainly better not be governing the thing; you had better have learned your craft through very hard work, reading and writing, and cold observation. People say, My God, I can’t believe that you really worked that hard for twenty years. How in God’s name did you do it? Well, obviously I did it because I enjoyed it. I don’t deserve any credit for working hard. I was doing what I wanted to do. Shakespeare said it best: “The labor we delight in physics pain.” There’s no better feeling in the world than to lay your head on the pillow at night looking forward to getting up in the morning and returning to that desk. That’s real happiness.