A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading. - William Styron

You live several lives while reading.

Writing for me is the hardest thing in the world, but also a thing which, once completed, is the most satisfying. ... I am no prodigy but, Fate willing, I think I can produce art.

The madness of depression is, generally speaking, the antithesis of violence. It is a storm indeed, but a storm of murk. Soon evident are the slowed-down responses, near paralysis, psychic energy throttled back close to zero. Ultimately, the body is affected and feels sapped, drained.

"I mean, I don't know much about the Civil War, but whenever I think of that time — I mean, ever since Gone With the Wind I've had these fantasies about those generals, those gorgeous young Southern generals with their tawny mustaches and beards, and hair in ringlets, on horseback. And those beautiful girls in crinoline and pantalettes. You would never know that they ever fucked, from all you're able to read." She paused and squeezed my hand. "I mean, doesn't it just do something to you to think of one of those ravishing girls with that crinoline all in a fabulous tangle, and one of those gorgeous young officers — I mean, both of them fucking like crazy?"

"Oh yes," I said with a shiver, "oh yes, it does. It enlarges one's sense of history."