"What About the Guy Who Wrote Confederacy of Dunces?"

These lines from the movie Sideways are just spot-on....

: Well, the world doesn't give a shit what I have to say. I'm not necessary. Had. I'm so insignificant I can't even kill myself.

: Miles, what the hell is that supposed to mean?

: Come on, man. You know. Hemingway, Sexton, Plath, Woolf. You can't kill yourself before you're even published.

: What about the guy who wrote Confederacy of Dunces? He killed himself before he was published. Look how famous he is.

: Thanks.

: Just don't give up, alright? You're gonna make it.

: Half my life is over and I have nothing to show for it. Nothing. I'am thumbprint on the window of a skyscraper. I'm a smudge of excrement on a tissue surging out to sea with a million tons of raw sewage.

: See? Right there. Just what you just said. That is beautiful. 'A smudge of excrement... surging out to sea.'

: Yeah.

: I could never write that.

: Neither could I, actually. I think it's Bukowski.

via IMDB quotes