Alcoholics build defenses like the Dutch build dikes. I spent the first twelve years or so of my married life assuring myself that I 'just liked to drink.' I also employed the world-famous Hemingway Defense. Although never clearly articulated (it would not be manly to do so), the Hemingway Defense goes something like this: as a writer, I am a very sensitive fellow, but I am also a man, and real men don't give in to their sensitivities. Only sissy-men do that. Therefore I drink. How else can I face the existential horror of it all and continue to work? Besides, come on, I can handle it. A real man always can.

When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story...When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.

Creative people probably do run a greater risk of alcoholism and addiction than those in some other jobs, but so what? We all look pretty much the same when we…

The corollary is that no writer will take all of his or her editor's advice; for all have sinned and fallen short of editorial perfection. Put another way, to …

I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Men do not knowingly drink for the effect alcohol produces on the body. What they drink for is the brain-effect; and if it must come through the body, so much …

'In 1969 I gave up women and alcohol. It was the worst 20 minutes of my life.'